


Farthest from the Light

by AikiBriarRose



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-divergence Post- Return of the Jedi, Discovery, Eventual Romance, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Grey Jedi, Jedi, M/M, Multi, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Star Wars - Freeform, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-05-26 22:15:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 56,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6257902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AikiBriarRose/pseuds/AikiBriarRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the First Order's Starkiller Base is destroyed, things take a while to get back in motion. Meanwhile, our new heroes continue to grow and train as do our villains. Nothing stays the same. Sometimes, a drastic choice needs to be made. Sometimes, fire needs to be fought with fire. Often, burning away the wild growth reveals things that have remained hidden far too long.</p>
<p>"Well, if there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from."<br/>
―Luke Skywalker, to C-3PO</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Itch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren attempts to complete his training. Rey trains with Luke Skywalker and learns more about him and herself.

     Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, most powerful known wielder of the Darkside of the Force, was standing watch, a vigil of obedience as ordered by Supreme Leader Snoke, or as a punishment. He wasn’t sure. It could be both. Whatever the case was, his mind was supposed to be focused on a point in the distance, a red light shining in the darkness of the large cavern he stood in, while he went through various isometric exercises to strengthen his muscles and open himself to the Force, to the Darkside. It was supposed to be focused, but it wasn’t.  


     Images flitted through his mind’s eye, distracting him. His father holding onto his lightsaber’s handle, touching his face like that, the emotion in his eyes speaking volumes. He hadn’t expected the tenderness, hadn’t expected to have his father look at him like that ever again. He forced that image from his mind, only to have more crowd in. The look of blood on his hands from the light of his saber and then the blood was real from the wound in his side. His father’s body falling down and away from him, into the endless darkness below, taking his soul, his heart with him. He tells himself, he tells no one, he tried to catch him, but he knows, in his broken soul, that he hadn’t. Shock felt and amplified through the Force had frozen him to the metal bridge as though welded there. Until she had screamed from above him and the shot came, blasting into his flesh, knocking him to one knee. Her voice had pierced the emptiness inside him, breaking him free from the shock. Freed him to look up and see her, reaching for him. A part of him, hidden deep, holds that image close, clinging to the thought of her reaching for him.  


     Water dripped in the distance, the plink of a drop falling from a long way up echoing and rippling the air of the cavern even as it rippled the surface of the pool below. It broke through his distraction and brought his mind back to focus on that red light. Supreme Leader Snoke’s voice came to him from the point of red light. “Your distraction makes you weak. Focus your passion! Amplify your hatred! Become your anger!”  
Hatred ignited in him, burning in his chest at the sound of his master’s taunting, sneering tone. It goaded him, turning his anger hard again. His form that he held as he stood his vigil stiffened in response to the renewed flame within him. He glares at the red light, focusing on hardening the anger, shaping it to match his lost lightsaber, a new weapon for him to wield.

 

     Rey wondered if she would ever be dry again. Humidity, a word she hadn’t even know existed, was now her constant companion, irritating her skin until she felt itchy all over. Sitting in the sun, attempting to meditate as Master Luke had instructed her, she twitched, then rolled her shoulders, trying to make the itch go away. It persisted and she sighed, then realized she was scowling and sighed again.  


     Knowing it was useless to continue her attempt to meditate while feeling this way, she scowled again, rising to her feet. She knew Master Luke would gently scold her and then set her on another task, as he had done for the past three days, but she could see worry in his eyes when he did so. Sighing a third time, Rey feels a small hollow pit form in her gut, leaking despair. She fought against it, telling herself that Master Luke really did want her here and really did want to train her, despite the sadness and pain he tried to hide from her. She would catch it in his eyes from time to time when he was instructing her in an aspect of the Force, or when they were just sitting together, eating a meal.  


     She twitched again, forcing these thoughts away from her and turned her mind to searching for Master Luke. The island they were on was one of the many in this area, a giant rock thrusting up from the ocean that covered the planet. This one had been hollowed out by long-ago inhabitants and through unknown means, made to hold various wells and hollows inside it filled with many different types and temperatures of water. Master Luke had told her he called it the Isle of Wells. A shudder ran through her at the thought of all the water that surrounded her these days. Wondering if Master Luke had ever gotten used to having all this water around him, she descended into the caves below in search of him.  


     She found him in one of his more regular spots, balancing on fingertips on a small column in the center of one of the hotsprings found at the lower levels. Before she could speak, he gracefully lowered himself and regained his feet on the column, then proceeded to hop to the other columns until he reached the side of the pool. His eyes narrowed as he gave her an enigmatic look and she bowed to him in apology, avoiding eye contact.  


     “Forgive me for interrupting you, Master.” Her bow didn’t last long. She didn’t know him very well yet, but from the moment they met, his serene demeanor and calm acceptance of her intrusion into his solitude made her trust him more than anyone she had ever known. She didn’t know how to show him her respect any better than with a bow. He seemed to be pleased when she did that, so she continued to use it when addressing him as her Master.  


     Master Luke donned the robes that he has laid at the side of the pool over his shirt and trousers.  


   “You’re still unable to meditate, Rey? What seems to be the problem?” His voice, mild and so gentle, soothed her hollowness and calmed her fears, though the itch remained.  


     “Do you ever wish to be dry again?” She voiced the question before the words registered, before she even knew what she was saying. His wry smile in response was so quick, she almost missed it.  


   “What do you mean?”  


   “I feel so wet lately, so itchy from all this moisture in the air. I move and sweat so easily…” Rey stopped, surprised that she had almost wished aloud to be back on Jakku, the one place she never thought she’d miss.  


     This time the smile was really there, followed by a soft chuckle. “I remember being back on Tatooine. My friends had left for the Academy to be fighter pilots and all I wanted was to leave my Uncle’s farm behind and never look back.” A long blink almost hid the pain of this memory. He reached out and gave her shoulder a squeeze.  


 “Let’s go home. You can rest up for tomorrow.” With that, he turned and headed toward the stairs to the top of the island. Knowing from past experience that this was all he would say at the moment, she nodded at his back, gathered her things and followed him up, then down to their hoverskiff tethered at the landing that had been hewn from the rock base of the island.

 

     Waiting. Standing. Watching. Holding his anger close and hard within him, Kylo had only a vague idea of how many hours had passed him by now. At least a day and a night now he had stood here, alert for the most part, honing his passion, his anger, as his master had bade him do. This wasn’t really too hard for him normally, as he had had years of practice. Ever since joining the Knights of Ren, he had plenty of reasons to keep his anger ablaze. Recent events gave him even more fuel for that fire. Everything but one small moment.  


     He tried to dismiss it from his thoughts. Tried to erase the memory with the image of his father dying in his arms, but even that led him back to the moment that was distracting him, keeping him from his normal, imperturbable vigilance.  


     Holding her in his arms. There. He’d thought of it fully now. Maybe allowing it to come up into his main thoughts would make it easier for him to dismiss. So he tried. He focused his anger again, bringing up moments from the recent past that had left him livid. Layer by layer, he added them to the hard, bright weapon he was constantly constructing inside himself.  


     Too late he realized that this too was a trap his mind had laid for him. He had been contemplating the landing he and his strike force had made on Takodana, at the castle of Maz Kanata, and the destruction they had wrought while searching for the droid. He had come so close to his goal that day. The unexpected appearance of his father on the battlefield, along with that trooper, that traitor caused his anger and hatred to flare, only to be blown away like ash by the memory of her face.  


     There in the forest, the sun in her hair, fear and uncertainty freezing her motionless, he had felt his heart begin to race. The chase through the woods exhilarated him even more, with her shooting at him as she ran deeper into the trees and then circled around, trying to get free. The look of her held by his will through the Force, then the weight of her as she collapsed in his arms, stunned by his Force blow. Unexpectedly, her body was lean and hard, muscled from a lifetime of strenuous work and not enough food. So surprising to him, as she had appeared slim and dainty in her defiant stance on that hill. And the heat of her! She had radiated warmth that even now reached into his bones with the memory.  


     He had carried her back to his shuttle in a daze, feeling triumphant despite having lost the droid in the forest. Once he had heard that she was out there, the urge to track her down and finally come face to face was too compelling. It had been worth it to see her facing him down, shooting at him, every shot deflected showing her his power over her and yet still she resisted. Just like his dreams, she was more powerful and innocent than even she knew.  


     The fact that she’d seen the map, that he’d found that knowledge in her thoughts, made it all the more imperative that he bring her with him. He’d been sure he could wiggle the rest of the information about it free, including the final mystery of the hiding place of his former mentor, Luke Skywalker. She’d resisted him though. He’d thought he could keep her off-guard, scared. Instead, she had picked up on his technique and copied it almost flawlessly to find one of his darkest secrets. At least that’s the only explanation he could think of, could accept, for what she’d been able to do to him.  


      He’d been confident in his plan when he was carrying her back to his shuttle. Marching up the ramp he’d almost missed the stormtrooper stepping up to take her from him once inside the shuttle. For a split second he hesitated, his insides and his thoughts in turmoil, not wanting to give her up to anyone. He had been about to take her back into the private compartment where he rode, one place nobody was allowed to go, normally. Squelching any reluctance to release his prize, he dumped her into the soldier’s arms and motioning him to follow, stomped back to his section, the ramp lifting and the shuttle rising into the atmosphere as he did. Looking back at that moment, he realized that not only had his father been there, but his mother had arrived soon after his shuttle had lifted off, her ship landing before his had entered hyperspace.  


     His gut knotted at this thought, of the thought of how close he’d been, how close she’d been. This surge of emotion brought his attention to how far his thoughts had wandered from where they were supposed to be. He redirected them back into his anger, that one emotion that was always with him, at his core, defining him. It felt like he was forging a weapon at his core, layer by layer, within himself. One day, he told himself, he’d get to use it.  


     Hours passed without his awareness of time as he fought against memories of his former life. Until from the depths of his subconscious the memory of a dream arose. It was of a night battle and he and the Knights of Ren had decimated the forces brought against them by some unknown group of soldiers. In the dream, he’d seen himself striking down the last opponent with the cross-bladed lightsaber he had carried. As he looked up from the body lying in the mud, the rain pouring down around them, a vision appeared of a women, shimmering in the night, unaffected by the rain. Shock ran through him as he now recognized the woman as the same girl he had just captured. He remembered that night vividly, as though it had really happened and only now found it making even a little sense. That night, even though the whole event had yet to happen just like the dream, he hadn’t known who the woman was who had appeared to him then.  


     Tremors ran through him as the pieces clicked and came together. She was part of his destiny. She was a part of his future, which he hadn’t known back then that he was seeing. This explained why that night had seemed incomplete. Why she had been able to reach inside his head. Only now, after months of healing and training, of focusing his emotions, did these things about her begin to make sense. She was to be his balance in the Force, the beginning of his legacy, the continuation of his grandfather’s legacy. This thought solidified his resolve, hardening inside him at the center, at the core of his weapon there, giving him a new goal to strive for.  


     A bell rang once in the distance, signaling the end of his vigil. “Not a moment too soon,” he thought. If he’d had to stand there much longer, he may have completely lost focus with the distraction of her in his thoughts, especially now that he recognized her from his dreams. Making his way out of the dark chamber, he told himself that he would find a way to get to her and convince her that she needed him as much as he needed her. Then, he started to think, then he would finish what his grandfather had started. Then...he halted his thoughts before they went much further, afraid to even think of what he truly desired beyond that.

 

     “How long have you been here now?” Master Luke’s question startled Rey at first. She often forgot he was there, he so rarely talked when they weren’t training. She shot him a questioning look, prompting him to elaborate. “I stopped keeping track of time many seasons ago,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “It was of no importance to me after I came here.”  


     Although his tone was casual, Rey noticed how specific his words were and thought of the first maxim he had taught her.  


     “Truth is often a matter of perspective.” He had told her this after she had related to him the visions she’d had when handling his lightsaber. At the time, she had been sure he was referring to how she had viewed being left on Jakku. All these years she had told herself that they would return for her and so she had waited. Waited and counted the days, one at a time.  


     Even now she ticked off the days as they passed, keeping track of them in the datapad that Master Luke had given her when he had agreed to train her. She figured she’d lost a few days between her last mark at her home on Jakku and now, but somehow it didn’t seem as important as it used to. She thought about Luke’s question for a moment, wondering what his point in asking it was.  


     “Seven months, three weeks, two days, Standard time, as of today,” she replied slowly, though she had known immediately what the tally was. She waited, the implied question of why hanging in the air between them. She received a smile from him for her exactness. He had known she would have that answer.  


     “Tell me again, “ he paused to give extra weight to his words, “why you are here.”  


Rey paused in her preparation of the food she was cooking, the pan in her hand as she went to divide it into two portions. She’d been so nervous with this meal, as it was the first one she had prepared all on her own that she hadn’t been expecting him to make her think about anything while she was cooking. Now she found her brain wasn’t wanting to work as fast as it usually did.  


     His question, or the implication behind his words, made her think more than she would have before answering. The obvious reply, that she was there to learn how to be a Jedi from him, was sure to get her a repetition of his words and very likely, one of his gentle reprimands. Gentle they might be, but she’d rather take a cursing by Unkar Plutt or one of his guards over that scolding any day. She scowled as the itch she’d felt earlier in the day returned, her skin crawling at the backs of her arms and up around her neck. Suppressing a twitch, she focused her thoughts inward, repeating his words as a question.  


     The pit that she’d felt in her gut opened again, wider this time, spilling not only despair this time, but fear as an image came to mind. Those eyes, burning into hers, that look of confidence masking a cauldron of emotions as the man in black loomed over her while she was helpless, strapped to that torture rack. Squeezing her eyes shut didn’t help as that image was replaced with one of him again looming over her, his burning gaze filled with a passion that she felt echoing in her rage, the light of their sabers reflecting back and forth as he offered her a way out of the precarious position she was in, offered to teach her about the Force.  


     The crack of the glass plate in her hands broke the silence of the room, shattering the images with pain as the shards drove into her palms. Luke responded to her wordless exclamation with calmness, rising to his feet and coming to her side to take her hands in his. They were rough and callused from years of hard work and exposure, or at least the one was. The artificial one was almost the same, its casing pitted and scarred. Both were gentle on her bleeding skin. Making sure that no shards remained in her skin, he turned her palms up and laid his hands over them.  


     Heat and light and so many other feelings poured into her through his touch, Rey felt light-headed for a few minutes after the sensation stopped. She realized after those few minutes, when her head settled down, that her hands no longer stung and that her eyes were closed. Master Luke was staring intently at her when she opened them. His normal, soft gaze had been replaced with an intensity that reminded her of the rock that made up these islands. She tried to withdraw her hands from his grip and found she couldn’t move them.  


     “Tell me, Rey, why you are here.” His voice was a mere whisper this time, but it lashed into her, causing her to jerk against his restraint. Panic rose in her throat, same as it ever had when having to deal with the riffraff she’d grown up around. As she had always done, she drew herself up and demanded to be let free.  


     “Let go of me!” She felt something in her words this time, something familiar to her now. She’d felt it when commanding that soldier to free her from the restraints after her interrogation, but not as strong this time. This tactic had always given her a moment where the one who grabbed her paused and blinked, allowing her to escape them or defend herself. This time however, she felt Master Luke push back against her demand, bringing her to the awareness that she’d been using the Force to do this all her life. She stopped her struggle and reflected on the feeling inside herself. It filled her, flowing into her like sand into a sinkhole, but without friction or pull, leaving her surrounded in stillness.  


     The intensity melted from Master Luke’s visage, leaving behind a pleased grin. Her hands now gently held in his, he brought them together, her now healed palms not quite touching. The buzz of energy flowed in and out and around them. Rey felt a quiet joy.  


      “This is why I’m here,” she softly stated. “To feel this and learn its ways.”  


      Master Luke nodded. “Remember this. You need to keep this in mind when you meditate, when you work and when you study.” His gaze dropped to their hands, then it came up again and caught hers and it was filled with mixed emotions when he spoke. “And especially when you again face Kylo Ren.”  


     The name hit her in the gut with the force of a physical blow. She’d avoided thinking it, avoided thinking of him and how he’d made her feel, what he’d done, to her and Finn and especially to the man she’d quickly come to adore and even hope to one day think of as an important figure in her new life. Perhaps even come to replace her missing father.  


     She’d told Han Solo that she needed to return to Jakku, but that was before the visions in Maz Kanata’s castle on Takodana. The visions that had ripped away her denial of her abandonment and her delusion that her family would return for her. After that, her capture by the man with that name, that monster, had driven any thought of Han’s job offer from her head until she’d needed something to look forward to while escaping. Then she’d repeated to herself over and over how she’d get away from him and back to the Millennium Falcon and they’d all fly off to the Resistance and take on the First Order, take on Kylo Ren and all his stormtroopers and everything would return to some semblance of normality. Except it never had.  


     She recognized now that she’d been replacing her old delusions with new ones, but it wouldn’t have been so bad if Han had still been alive when she had readjusted to accept that. The tangle of emotions that erupted inside her at the mention of that monster’s name made it difficult to even think about remaining calm and remembering the Force, let alone do what Master Luke was asking her to do.  


     “I thought you,” she whispered through teeth clenched in sudden fear, “would be the one the one to face him, to fight him.” She blinked back tears that threatened to leak, hating these feelings tearing her up inside.  


     In between one blink and the next, Luke rose to his feet, his expression closed off and tightly guarded, turning away from her, fists clenched. It seemed to Rey as though he were recoiling from her or from her suggestion. The room grew dark, the flow of energy turning back on itself, becoming dark as well. Darker energies began to swirl around the room, emanating from Luke as anger, sorrow, despair and other, more complex emotions. She could feel them boiling up inside him like a pot of heated water, though he was doing his best to contain them again. Long moments passed as he stood now on the opposite side of the room from her, the sudden burst of emotions seething and coursing around inside him. She could almost see them trying to break free from his constraint and wondered how she had missed them before.  


     “I can’t.” His voice was ragged now as he fought to gain control again. Rey was amazed that she hadn’t noticed it before, the black hole in his aura where he’d locked this Darkness away. Now it glared at her, a baleful eye hiding the malevolence of his anger and despair. This was why he left, she thought. This is why he walked away from it all. The enormity of it struck her now as overwhelming.  


     “I’m sorry,” she stuttered softly, “I didn’t…”  


     Luke cut her words off with a slashing gesture, the tension striking through his body and out into the surrounding area. Through her contact with the Force, it was almost a solid blow.  


     “No, it’s not you. There’s just too much…” his voice broke from a harsh whisper into a ragged sob as he sucked in a breath, still struggling to regain his composure.  


     Betrayal, Pain, Sorrow, Anger, Hatred, Regret, Despair - these words all came to mind as Rey struggled to comprehend the emotions he was trying to restrain. The Darkness in the room was almost palpable now, even though the lights still burned as they had before. Turning completely away from her, Luke drew his arms to his sides and bowed his head. The Darkness withdrew into him, forced by his will and his connection to the Light side of the Force. Focusing on her own connection, Rey sent out a wave of the same feelings she had had when he had healed her hands.  


      Luke’s head came up and he stared at her over his shoulder, his gaze recovering some of its former intensity. He seemed a bit surprised to her. She was rather amazed at herself, being able to feel the Force flowing from her to him, wrapping around him, buoying him up. Abruptly, her link with him through the Force ended as he cut off the connection between them. Turning away again, he headed out the door of the main room, his hoarse mutter of “I’m sorry.” almost not heard except it was so quiet there was nothing to hide it as he left her sitting there.


	2. Nebulae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey contemplates her feelings about Kylo Ren. A link is discovered between them. Dreams and foreshadowings.

     Rey stayed where she was for far longer than she intended, going over the recent events in her life. Her twitchiness and restless behavior she was now able to admit had been due to the denial of what had made her seek out more knowledge of the Force in the first place. She had avoided thinking about Han Solo’s death, about the events that had led up to that moment, and especially avoided thinking or even allowing any conscious thought to surface that had to do with Kylo Ren.

     She reminded herself that Han had called him Ben. That shout had drawn her and Finn to the balcony looking down on the oscillator, there on Starkiller Base, only to see Han moving out onto that catwalk towards the monster in black that had captured her. A shiver had run through her at the sight of him that had nothing to do with the cold coming in behind them but still had her wishing she hadn’t given Finn’s jacket back. That mask, the one she had awakened from unconsciousness to see from her position on that torture table, was soon removed as Han spoke to him. The sight of his face impacted her just as much then as it had when he’d removed it for her the first time.  
     

     Reflecting back on his attempt at interrogating her, she wondered why he’d removed it before questioning her about the map. He’d even tried to put her at ease, telling her lies and acting like he didn’t want to hurt her. This would have made more sense and might even have worked if his line of questioning had been more friendly or even more seductive. Instead he had used the Force to get inside her head and sift through her memories, pulling up random images from her subconscious and threatening to take things from her. He didn’t know her very well, even if he acted like he did, if he thought she would let him or anyone do that.  
     

     Thinking about him using seduction to get the information he wanted made her squirm, a feeling of warmth flooding throughout her body. He’d been more handsome than she’d expected when he’d removed the mask after she had called him a monster. She’d had been on the receiving end of many flirtatious passes from men and boys at Niima Station and from some of the surrounding Sacred Villages when she would travel around looking for parts or services, but those had never gotten her attention as anything more than someone wanting something from her that she wasn’t prepared to give. The women and girls she’d known had been too busy trying to survive to do much preening or flirting back, though she supposed it did happen, as children had appeared in the villages on a regular basis. No one had ever looked at her like he had that first time she’d seen his face.  
     

     It was almost like a man dying of thirst would look at a large pool of water. Even after he had started sifting through her memories, it seemed like he was searching for more than just an image of the map. Rather like the times she found crewmen quarters that hadn’t been looted yet in the downed ships. She had always gone through the remaining items, searching for the personal items, the pictures of friends, datapads with personal accounts, anything that provided a sense of personality, of who this person had been when not on duty. Most of these had been Imperials, working for the Empire, but ultimately they all simply seemed to be men and women just living out their lives the best they could. To her, they became part of her family, related to her by their short existence or death in the deserts of Jakku.  
     

     Her thirst for their intimate details to fill up her own empty existence had never been slaked. It was this sense of thirst that she felt in Kylo Ren’s thoughts as he had tried to force her to think of the map piece that BB-8 had shown her and Finn and Han on the Millennium Falcon. He hadn’t found that and she hadn’t thought of it, but instead he found the images from her dreams, the ones she’d had her whole life. The ocean with an island was the one he stopped on and had been the one she’d realized had lead her to Luke, but he hadn’t known that. Instead he’d focused on the loneliness and fear he’d found and pulled to the surface. These had been feelings she’d tucked down deep inside, always there but hidden beneath her denial and delusions. The fact that they had echoed so perfectly off the same emotions in his head had been a startling revelation, one that she had quickly been able to home in on and take her own advantage of.  
     

     Going back over the whole series of events, she could now pick out and acknowledge details she hadn’t noticed before. This was something she’d always been able to do, remember details around wherever she’d been, down to the smells and sounds, reconstructing the scenes in her head with a high degree of accuracy. Now with the meditation techniques that Master Luke had taught her, she was able to focus even more on what she’d seen and take a step back from the emotions of the moment to examine what was happening.  
     

     She began with the moment she had awakened and opened her eyes to see him sitting there, watching her from behind that mask. Her questions and his answers now struck her as incredibly snarky, considering she had found herself strapped to a metal contraption, her captor simply watching her, waiting for her to awaken. When he’d risen to his feet in response to her quip about being a monster, she’d expected more of the same treatment he’d given her in the forest of Takodana. Instead, he had slowly removed his mask and helmet, revealing himself to be around her age and intensely handsome. Then he’d started questioning her and when she refused to give him what he wanted, seemed apologetic that he was going to hurt her. The menace she had felt when he had been hidden behind the mask had dissipated though, and she was able to finally push back, seeing things in his mind that had shocked her.  
     

     She hadn’t meant to reveal his fear like that but it had come spilling out of her mouth before she could stop it. It had caught him completely off-guard, though looking back on it now, she could see that this was more from the fact she’d been able to resist him, even push back and get into his mind. There had been profound sadness there in him as well as the loneliness and fear. She could feel that now, divorced from the immediacy of the instance as she was. Another emotion that echoed in her own self. She wondered what could possibly make someone striving so hard to be terrible and frightening so incredibly sad.  
         

     The rest of the scene played out in her mind, him able to easily sift through her thoughts and memories until suddenly he couldn’t. The memory of how she’d felt that energy coming from him, from his mind into hers had triggered something that let her finally, desperately, erect a barrier that had then turned into a means to enter into his mind and see his thoughts, though seeing wasn’t quite accurate. She’d just known them, like viewing a simulation or reading a manual gave her the information, his thoughts had been laid as open to her as hers were to him. The knowledge that he’d had the ability to hurt her, like he’d hurt Poe, but didn’t was apparent to her now. In fact, his whole demeanor had been more than just interrogation. It was clear that he’d been curious about her and was just as interested in satisfying that curiosity as he was in forcing her to give up the knowledge of the map.  
     

     She focused her memory in closer on his face, watching the emotions play out in his eyes as he attempted to manipulate her thoughts before he’d been shocked by her own manipulation and declaration. His breathing had increased as he leaned over her, his nostrils were flared and his eyelids had drooped. The memory of his scent and the flush of his cheeks, his full lips parted as he waited for her response came back to her as she focused. She’d seen reactions like this before, not all at the same time and not necessarily from someone interacting with her. It surprised her to admit it, but he had been aroused by his questioning of her, by her, albeit without being aware of it.  
     

     A loud gasp startled her from her revere. She looked around, expecting to see Master Luke watching her and feeling exposed by that thought. She was the only one in the room. The gasp had come from her and she flushed to realize that thinking of him, and how he had been aroused while interrogating her had brought her own senses to an unexpected tension. Letting out the breath she’d been holding while looking around, she took a couple more deep ones to try and clear her head.  
     

     Still feeling flush and out of breath, she was no longer hungry for the food she’d cooked. Gathering the remains of dinner and storing the food for later gave her time to chide herself for being such a stupid girl. How she could let herself get overwrought by just thinking about something like that, and with that monster proved she hadn’t been completely under her own will, she told herself. A contrary voice in her head reminded her that the monster she referred to was General Leia’s son, Han Solo’s son, and Master Luke’s nephew. This was followed by herself pointing out the fact that this didn’t change history and he had still killed his own father. She shuddered at this reminder, feeling tears rise in her eyes. She chided herself for being so emotional, then excused it because of what had happened earlier with Master Luke.  
     

      Finishing with her cleanup, she headed upstairs to the training room, intending to go through the sword exercises Master Luke had taught her until she was calm enough and tired enough to sleep. She didn’t expect to see Master Luke until tomorrow at the earliest, if then. Considering how worked up she was from the emotional outburst they’d shared, and that he was burdened even more by the recent events, it wouldn’t surprise her if a couple of days passed before he put in another appearance to continue her training.  
     

     A hot bath after her strenuous workout helped her feel even more balanced and like herself, plus it was the only time she truly felt warm these days. Arranging her blankets on her pallet and making sure she had everything ready for tomorrow, she felt ready to sleep, hoping it would come quickly. It wasn’t as hard for her to sleep since coming here as it had been on Jakku, for which she was grateful. The continuous exercise and training might be most of the reason, she was willing to admit, but it could also have something to do with how much she enjoyed no longer being alone.  
     

     Laying back on her bed, arms stretched out over her head, she reached out with her mind to feel the Force, still finding it novel enough to just explore how it felt. Breathing in, she could smell the living things on the island, herself and Master Luke included. As she relaxed and embraced the Force, her awareness expanded out around the island and she could sense the life in the ocean as well. She was happy to be on a planet with such an abundance of peaceful creatures right now, as being on someplace like Jakku might give her horrible vibes when she did this, she thought.  
     

     Drifting in the peacefulness, she noticed a glowing line stretching from the area of the island out into the vastness of space and she followed it with her mind, curious to see where it led. She thought it might be Luke’s connection to his sister, so she didn’t intrude on it. Quick as thought itself, she found it leading her deep into space and reaching an unknown star system. Not that systems could be seen and identified through the Force the same as on a star chart. She knew that from her lessons. Here the glowing line ended, similar to what it looked like from her end, just encompassing an area on the planet below. Her curiosity peaked, she thought about moving closer to it.  
     

     The thought was the deed and she was slipping into its stream before she realized it. Her awareness stretched to be filled with that glow and she was suddenly all too aware of who and where it was coming from. Kylo Ren! Her acknowledgement of the connection brought his awareness of it and he paused in whatever it was he was doing to reach out with his own mind to touch the link. His surprise met her wariness and they circled each other’s thoughts, watching to see what the other would do.  
     

     Rey felt her body tense, back on Ahch-to, and her mind closed the connection, flinging her back into her room faster than any hyperspace flight could be. She felt the link still, but not filling her up as it had before. She could feel him reaching out along it as well and erected a barrier to stop him. His awareness reached it and engulfed it, then slowed as it reached her. Fear shot through her as she felt him extend himself to her, then ebbed as he hesitated. He seemed to be waiting for her to meet him equally, so she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and reached out to him.  
     

     Together they met in the Force, their essences coming up against each other but remaining separate. They circled each other, searching out how to manage this unknown sensation and what they could do with it. Rey thought of the giant jellyfish that live here in the ocean and how they would extend tendrils out to one another in communication. In response, a tendril of her essence reached out to his, touching and then being swallowed up by it. Images swarmed her, too fast to fully process and she drew back, uncertain if he wanted to share.  
     

     “Rey?” His voice came to her through his essence. The question was rife with a multitude of meaning, asking her if that was her name, if this was her he was feeling and so much more. She felt suddenly vulnerable and withdrew more. His whole being became more somber, the sadness she remembered blossoming up to fill him now. Somehow an ache filled her, wanting to comfort him. She extended a tendril as she had before, this time focusing on projecting rather than seeking. As she touched him, she fed the same light and healing energy that she had for Luke through that touch to him. At first he welcomed it, pushing up against her to feel more of it. Then he changed, became more dark, withdrawing from her. His essence became more grim, then withdrew from the spot where they were until she could barely sense him along the glowing line. She tried to follow, only to have him come back quickly, forcefully.  
     

     “No! It’s not safe.” The words came to her quick and harsh, then an impression of danger and he was gone, leaving a thought that he would return when he could. Otherwise, nothing but cool grey shadows remained of him now.  
     

     Returning to herself, Rey wondered if all of that was really him or was she dreaming. She opened her eyes to her mostly dark room. If it was a dream, it was definitely the most intimate, yet bizarre one she’d ever had. Thoroughly tired now, she reflected back on how easily Luke had deflected her question about his homeworld and being dry. She chuckled as this thought occurred to her. Her sleep was deep and restful until the dreams started up for real.  
     

     She found herself running through woods again, first the hot green forest of Takodana, then she would make a turn and find herself in the cold dark of the Starkiller Base forest, the crunch and slip of snow underfoot. She ran for some time through these forests, jumping and dodging, twisting and turning, not sure why or if she was running from something or someone. Once she thought about it, she stopped running out of fear, but since it didn’t seem wise to stop altogether, she began to pay attention to what was around her as she ran. She began stretching herself to jump higher, twist and turn faster, to run for the sheer joy of it. She felt a surge of energy through her limbs, making them lighter, allowing her even more freedom, until ahead of her, in the snow and evergreen trees of Starkiller Base, her path led to an abrupt drop-off, the ground retreating on either side as well.  
     

     The decision to run and jump or try to stop her momentum barely touched her conscious thought before she pushed her legs harder into the snow, finding solid ground beneath, then leaping out into the abyss, arms spread wide. She wasn’t sure about the landing, as her dream abruptly shifted to her rolling over and finding a warm body next to her, the feel of him igniting her skin the entire length of her body.  
     

     Then her arms were around him and his around her and they were kissing and groping each other in the throes of passion, tugging at clothing and moaning into each other’s mouths until she felt his teeth on her lips and tongue, biting her hard enough to draw blood. The pain of his bites shocked her. Breaking free with a yell, she pulled back and tumbled away, the bed beneath her disappearing along with the floor and walls of her room.  
     

     Righting herself and finding her balance, she looked around. The room she was in was darker than hers had been, with a single soft light recessed into the wall. This light revealed Kylo Ren, dressed as though he’d just got out of bed, sitting in front of what seemed to be a shrine. It was a small pedestal, holding a twisted and burnt mask that wavered and changed into the head of a being, scarred and dessicated and grinning a hideous grin as Kylo bowed before it. The head began to grow, mocking laughter coming from the grin now as its mouth opened to swallow the man before it.  
     

     As the head grew, the man shrank, growing younger as well, until just as the head towered over him to engulf him, he was no more than a young boy. Before she could even consider the consequences, Rey was dashing forward, grabbing the boy and rolling out of the way of the head as it bit down.  
A scream of rage erupted around them as she pulled herself and the boy upright. Facing the head, its eyes glowing with malevolence, scars twisting its features, she braced for the next attack as the mouth opened again. Unexpectedly it came from behind, the boy she had saved pummeling her, striking fierce blows to her ribs, head, and legs. Lashing out in self-defense, Rey slapped him across the face. His shocked look was almost funny, like he hadn’t expected retaliation for his actions. The head laughed, its mouth full of jagged teeth, too many to be realistic.  
     

     Then it attacked and she was defending herself and the boy, arms raised as she backed them into a corner of the room. She could feel the slashes of the teeth as they tore her arms to ribbons. The boy didn’t fare much better and he cried out in shock and anger, surprised that this attack hurt him as well.  
     

     “What do you want?” Rey cried out, or thought she did, amidst the howls of her attacker and the boy. In response, the biting attacks stopped and darkness flooded from the mouth, flowing out over the bloody teeth in a flood that filled the room like liquid smoke. Not wanting it to touch her, she scrambled up on the pedestal, pulling the boy with her. Their desperate scramble knocked the twisted mask to the floor. The boy cried out and tried to catch it but she pulled him up before he could.  
     

     Somehow there was just enough room for the two of them. He glared at her, his eyes glowing yellow now in the sickly light coming from the head’s eye sockets. She noticed his hair was lighter now, more golden brown than black, and continuing to get lighter still. His face was different now as well. She didn’t have much time to wonder about this, though, as the darkness was rising higher, engulfing their feet now. She turned away from the head’s baleful, open-mouthed grin and began examining the wall behind them for something, anything to use as a step up or weapon to face the head with.

     A deep sigh from the boy startled her and she turned to him, afraid he might have been weakened and fainting from the attack. She found him crouching down, his head bent low to the darkness. Sucking sound came from him. She recoiled in horror as it became apparent that he was drinking the darkness, taking it into himself. As he did, he began to grow, until he was almost back to his original size.  
     

     The head began to writhe and scream again, spewing forth more of the foulness from its mouth, as well as its eyes and ears now and leaking from its scars. It wasn’t enough to keep the room filled any more. The floor became visible again and the boy, once again a man, hopped from the pedestal and held out his hand to her, his arm flesh still ragged from the earlier attack. Without hesitation, she took his hand and jumped down. He released her hand and turned to the head.

     Smaller now, it continued to spew darkness, but it was weaker, visibly so. Somehow, as often happens in a dream, he grabbed it and managed to consume the head in one bite, taking it all into himself. He turned to her, a hood covering his head now, hiding his face. His eyes still burned from within the depths of the hood, holding her gaze. He pointed to the corner of the room where the pedestal still stood. As her gaze went there, he strode from the room, the door sliding shut behind him.  
     

     In the weak glow of the light on the wall, she could make out a figure laying there on the floor, wearing black from head to toe. Kylo Ren, she thought, a quick intake of breath choking her, her feet moving in that direction before the thought was complete. Her heartbeat was loud in her ears as she crouched to turn him over. Reaching out to grab the cloth of the shirt that covered the body, she felt like she had shrunk, her hands so small it was a struggle to pull the dead weight over. The smell of burnt flesh assailed her nostrils as the body rolled over to reveal the face of her father.

     She screamed. All the horror of the dream, compounded by memories now assaulting her, was too much. She scrambled back, screams tearing her throat as they erupted from her. The knock of her head against the hard rock wall of her bedroom shocked her awake. She wrapped her arms around her knees, hugging herself tightly, rocking and moaning sobs into her arms.  
     

     Loneliness overwhelmed her, bleak and hard inside her heart, sweeping her along in a flood as she cried like she hadn’t since she’d been very young. In the year just past, she’d resisted the urge many times, especially since arriving here to train with Master Luke. Here, in the dark of her room, after all the ups and downs of the last day and now these dreams, this night, it was all finally too much to hold in and she let it all come out, no matter who heard her. She could no longer stand how lonely and distraught it was making her feel.  
     

     After a long while, she felt her inner balance return, the tightness easing in her chest, bringing an end to the tears and sobs that had made her heave and shake. The loneliness was still there, though not as hard and immediate. Instead it was an emptiness that reminded her of the deserts of Jakku. Of home, she admitted now. All these years, she’d waited for her family to return, to not leave her abandoned, to take her back home, and now, only now was she able to look back and see how badly that had affected her.  
     

     Drying her face, she laid back down, hoping to fall asleep, yet fearing that was beyond her tonight. She contemplated the revelations she had received, about herself, about the dreams, about Kylo Ren. The thought of him brought to mind that link she’d discovered between them. She searched and found it, still glowing softly in her mind, but still grey and slight, no response from him when she sent an inquiry out along it. Sleep came to her in this contemplative state, grey peace blanketing her in quiet emptiness.


	3. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe and Finn find out more about Leia's private life. Leia finds valuable information about Rey.

[Taking place 7 months earlier, between events on Takodana and Starkiller Base]

     It was amazing to Unkar Plutt how close he’d come to dying on Takodana. He’d followed the beacon he’d planted on the Millennium Falcon, tracking it through hyperspace until it stopped, then swooping in, only to find out that the reason it had paused briefly during its trip was to pick up its former owner, Han Solo and his Wookiee co-pilot, before continuing on. Not that Unkar had been too eager to confront Solo on his barge, especially after the Guavian Death Gang and Kanjiklub showed up. He wasn’t sure what happened, but the Falcon left on its own a short while later so he instructed his crew to drop a marker and follow.

     Ostensibly, he had been after the ship, as far as his crew was informed, anyway. In truth, he’d been following the girl, having a pressing need to know where she ended up so he could report it back to his connection if asked. He’d never voluntarily reveal she’d left the planet, as that would mean an end to some very lucrative payments, but knowing details would be good for any cover he would need to concoct in the future. When it seemed that she would be returning to her people, or at least those connected to whoever was paying him, he figured those payments would most likely be ending. Han Solo wouldn’t have been his choice as the most reliable method of delivery, but it was as close to the Rebellion as he was willing to come without getting close to one of their bases. Being implicated by association was not something he was willing to risk, especially with a First Order Star Destroyer having just paid a visit to Jakku.

     Unkar chuckled, having amused himself by calling the Resistance by its old moniker. He’d dealt with Korr Sella these past few years and knew how she hated that designation. He was glad she hadn't been on Takodana, as running into her there might have blown his cover. He hadn’t wanted to have others asking uncomfortable questions about his motivations for being so far from his normal territory. He planned on sending her a message as soon as he had a secure line, asking for extra compensation for the loss of his arm by that Wookiee. How was he to know they really did have the strength to rip the arms off a Gundark?

     Laying in his ship’s medical bay all the way back to Jakku gave him plenty of time to think about things, something he wasn’t usually keen to do. This trip though, he had lots of strong drink and medication to lubricate his thoughts. Fifteen standard years now he’d been watching over that girl, Rey, making people teach her things and take care of her so he’d get paid as promised. Things like languages, machine repair, how to read and write, how to fight and survive and scavenge the best parts and anything else that his workers knew that might come in handy for her to know. His instructions hadn’t been specific, just that she be taught everything possible for her to learn and that she be kept alive and in good health. He excused her short rations with the justification that she needed discipline in order to learn how to respect authority. When she gave him more respect, he’d planned on increasing them accordingly.

     Someone had taught her how to repair simulators and since then, she’d been finding and repairing them from those downed Star Destroyers. Apparently, having seen vids of that chase between her in the Falcon and those First Order TIE Fighters, she’d become a much better pilot than he would ever have expected. Regret at a missed opportunity to make money briefly touched him. He could have made a fortune off of her as a racing pilot if he’d known she could fly like that. She’d never shown any interest in piloting anything larger than her speeder or going off planet, so he’d never even thought to look into that.

     Unkar Plutt heaved a heavy sigh and took a long drink. It was better this way, he told himself. If she’d been a winning pilot, it might have, no - would have drawn attention to her and that went against the original agreement he’d made with that woman who’d dropped her off all those years ago. He hadn’t seen or heard from that woman since then, but Korr Sella, and her father before her, had paid him every year, so he had assumed that woman was working for or sympathizing with the Resistance. Maybe even from within the First Order. That woman, the one that had dropped the girl off, had not looked like she was part of the Resistance. Rather she had seemed to be one of those outdated remaining members of some world’s long-standing aristocracy. Yet, despite her expensive clothing and regal bearing, not to mention the way she had looked down her nose at him, she had moved and reacted like someone ready for a fight and capable of dealing a lot of damage if she found one.

     Very confusing these humans, Unkar reminded himself, taking another long drink. This reminded him of something he’d done before leaving Jakku on this crazy, profitless trip. Something so foolish, especially for one of his kind. He blamed it on the influence of humans, for making him crazy. He thought it might also make him rich, so it equalled out in the end. Taking one last drink, he lay back and closed his eyes, determined to stop thinking and rest until they arrived back at Jakku.

 

[Current time, 7 months after Starkiller Base exploded]

     Leia paused in the preparation of her meal, overwhelmed once again by that sense of loss, that hollow point in the region of her heart that had opened up when Han had died. Had been killed, some stupidly logical part of her brain insisted. She gripped the handle of the chef knife tighter, willing her thoughts to behave and wishing it was that easy with emotions. He hadn’t been around to be missed much in the past few years, but she’d always felt him there in her heart and out there among the stars.

     Guilt and sorrow fought a duel for her heart at the thought of Han’s death at the hand of their son. Her son, whom she’d failed, had killed his own father, whom she’d sent to him. The darkness closed in around her to the point of breaking her into little pieces left lying on the floor for someone to clean up.

     Laughter broke through her anguish, freeing her before the final blow shattered her. She looked around to see Poe Dameron and the new guy, Finn, arms thrown around each other’s shoulders, chortling over some joke or prank they’d just shared. Her face stretched into a smile of its own volition. It took her a moment to feel it. When she did, a small light blossomed in the hollow space below her heart. The smile softened and she felt wetness on her cheeks. She grabbed a towel and quickly dried her face, then picked up the knife and finished chopping the vegetables and meat on the counter in front of her into bite sized chunks and dropped them into a large bowl.

     The two guys came over to her, led by Poe, still chuckling. He spoke to her, not shy at all.

     “Hello, General. Is there anything we can do to help you?”

     Leia looked around, catching Finn’s eye and smiling at the shy, flustered grin he gave her in return. The light in her center flickered and grew brighter.

     “Yes, there is. You can help me eat all this food.” She was grinning now, enjoying the surprised reactions on their faces at the invitation. Never one to stand on formality, she still found herself given a wider berth than she wanted most times, especially lately. She nodded at the plates and utensils on the nearby counter and picked up the bowl of food. Heading toward the nearest table, she didn’t look back. She knew Poe would follow her and Finn hadn’t left Poe’s side since waking from his coma five months ago.

     “I always seem to make too much food when I do it myself,” she said as she walked. “I guess that comes from raising boys. They always were hungry growing up.” The last of her words came out into an awkward silence. She felt her smile slip a bit and fought to maintain it, not willing to give it up so soon. She forced out a chuckle and set the bowl on the table. “Once a mother, always a mother,” she stated firmly.

     Finn looked perplexed while Poe smiled and set out the plates for each of them. He nudged Finn, who was holding the utensils. Finn, the look of confusion on his face drawing his brows down, set the utensils down in the center of the table in a pile. Leia’s smile grew again and Poe shook his head in mock exasperation.

     “No, Finn. Set one of each by each of the plates. This isn’t a dormitory.”

     “Oh,” Finn exclaimed, dejected until he saw Poe smiling at the joke. His face lit up with understanding at the teasing tone and he laughed softly. “Oh! Sorry! Here, let me get that.” He picked up the utensils again as Leia was reaching for them and laid them out next to each plate, grinning now along with them.

     Poe remained standing after holding Leia’s chair for her and motioning to Finn to be seated.

     “Allow me to dish out, General,” he said, picking up the bowl of food and putting action to his words. Leia shook her head, not at him dishing out, but at his use of her title.

     “Please, call me Leia. There isn’t anyone else in here so no need to be so formal.” She waved her fork at him for emphasis. “That goes for both of you.”

     Finn nodded but looked too shy still, like he expected her to suddenly change her mind and demand he salute. Leia knew that this was due to how he’d been raised, as a military asset with no real family, only comrades and superiors, orders and training. Even down time was influenced by the First Order’s strict Imperialistic slant. She doubted he’d ever shared a meal before coming here with anyone but those he considered to be his own equals.

     Poe on the other hand, was grinning like a fool again, nodding his head at her words, but with a look in his eye that said he’d continue to call her what he considered appropriate, no matter how much she insisted otherwise.

     They ate in silence at first. Leia found that she’d lost her appetite again but still made herself eat out of practiced force of will. She knew she needed the food, even if her body didn’t want it.

     Finn had a confused look on his face again, his thoughts obviously troubling him. His mouthfuls of food were chewed mechanically until he came to a moment when he stopped, his fork filled with food sinking down to rest on his plate. He looked at her, his eyebrows crumpled together.

     “I’m sorry if this is inappropriate, General, but I have to know. You said you raised boys, right? As in more than one, plural, correct?”

     Leia smiled, pain flaring up in her heart and reflecting in her gaze for a quick second, then smoothed out, only nostalgia remaining visible. “Yes, Finn, plural. Han and I have...had, two sons. Twins as a matter of fact.” She waited for him to process this fact.

     Finn’s face showed all of his emotions, ranging from comprehension to shock and surprise and ending on fear. “You mean there’s someone else like Kylo Ren?” Without thinking, he surged to his feet, hands pushing him up and away from the table, eyes wide and his breaths coming fast and heavy.

     “Finn!” Poe’s startled reprimand came at the same time as Leia’s own gasp at the use of that name. They both recovered quickly and started making gestures at Finn to calm him down, to lower his voice.

     “I’m sorry, General, “ Poe’s cheeks were reddened with his embarrassment, one arm over Finn’s shoulder and the other hand pushing him back down into his seat. “He’s still…”

     “It’s alright, Poe,” Leia interrupted him, chagrin drawing a frown on her face. “I think we all forget that Finn is still new to all this…” her words trailed off and she waved her hands to encompass their surroundings. She mean it to also include the Resistance in its entirety as well as where they were.

     Finn looked embarrassed by his outburst, but remained standing instead of taking his seat as Leia and Poe did. Poe tugged on his arm, only to be shaken off. Before he could say anything, Leia sighed, then took a deep breath. In that moment, an aura of power settled on her, seen in the way her shoulders squared and her face grew cold, her gaze sharp, yet distant.

     “Sit down, Finn, and listen!”

     Finn sat abruptly, his body in motion at her command before he had time to even process what was happening. He sat ramrod straight, hands in his lap, eyes locked on Leia, looking like he was trying to say something but unable to speak.

     Poe’s mouth was agape. He’d heard rumors of Leia’s ability to command like this, though never witnessed it firsthand. He wasn’t sure if he should do anything so he waited to see what would happen next.

     “As I was saying, Finn,” Leia continued, her voice back to its normal, cheerful volume with none of that commanding power showing, “Han and I have twins, both boys, but as different as night and day. You and Poe and Rey had the misfortune to encounter our,” she paused, searching for the word she wanted to use, then finished softly, “rogue child.” Her voice trembled a bit but stayed steady for the most part. She laid a hand on Finn’s arm.

     His eyes widened, then went back to normal, as did his breathing, finally. He shook his head like he was coming out of water. “It’s okay, General, I mean, um, Leia.” He laughed nervously, shaking his head again. “I didn’t mean to shout so loudly.” He blushed, his dark cheeks going a shade brighter with his embarrassment. “I should know better by now.”

     “No, no, please, don’t fret. I know you weren’t being malicious,” Leia patted his arm some more, calming him with her soothing tone. “One of these days soon, I’ll take you all to meet my other son. He’s the administrator of Cloud City on Bespin.” She grinned, her pride in her son’s position that of any normal mother.

     Poe nodded eagerly, excited to find out more about this unknown part of Leia’s life. She was one of his long time idols and he was ecstatic to be included as one of her circle of friends. Finn nodded, still shaken by the whole incident. They all started eating again, Leia actually feeling hungry enough to show real interest in her food now that her mind was occupied in ways to finagle a visit to Cloud City into her busy schedule over the next few weeks.

     Their quiet meal was nearly over when it was interrupted by a young woman carrying a large crate filled with various datapads of differing sizes, jumbled together indifferently.

     “Excuse me, General Organa, but I was told to bring these to you. They’re from one of the quarters we are cleaning out in preparation for the move. The rooms are some that aren’t being used any longer because of,” here she paused, unsure of how to state the reason why those rooms weren’t being used.

     Leia nodded and finished the sentence. “Because the people they were assigned to are no longer with us, right?” The compassion in her voice, underlain with sorrow, brought tears to the young woman’s eyes and she nodded mutely, setting the crate down heavily on the table. Brushing loose hair from her face, she looked harried and exhausted and like she hadn’t wanted to be the one to deliver this cargo to Leia.

     Leia slowly rose to her feet, pulling one of the datapads out of the bin. “These are from Korr Sella’s quarters, aren’t they?” Her gaze sharpened from questioning to furious in a heartbeat. “Who’s been handling these? Her quarters were cleaned out last week! These should have been brought to me then without anyone else touching them!” The volume of her voice hadn’t changed but the aide visibly shook as Leia turned to face her, holding the datapad up.

     “I...I...I don’t know. They were just brought to our crew today. N-n-none of these were to be disposed of and we were told to bring them to you instead of packing them up with the rest of the storage. The security ratings on the files...please…” She flinched and closed her eyes, head bowed and leaning away from Leia.

     Shock and consternation warred for control of Leia’s face, causing her to lower the datapad and step back from the young woman. “No, it’s not a problem.” She raised her empty hand and laid it on the woman’s arm, her face suddenly controlled and calm. “Thank you. You did well, bringing them to me. If you come across anything else like this, please do the same immediately, okay.”

     The young woman, now gazing at Leia with wide, adoring eyes, nodded her head and smiled, then left, a bounce in her step. Leia shook her head and turned back to the crate, shuffling through the top layer of datapads.

     “What was that all about?” Poe exclaimed, not sure what to think about what he’d just seen and unable to just explain it away or dismiss it. Finn had a weird look on his face, like he was fitting puzzle pieces together in his head. He remained silent while Poe muttered on, watching Leia closely.

     “Oh,” Leia looked up, three datapads in her hands, “Sorry about that. I will have to take my leave of you boys for now. Duty calls!” She waggled the pads at them and set them back into the crate, picked the whole thing up and carried it out of the room.

     In her own quarters, Leia set the crate down on the low table in the middle of her main room and leaned on it, drawing in several deep breaths. She was feeling strangely energized, despite having just carried the heavy crate a longer distance than she’d have considered doing normally. Lifting one hand from the crate, she glanced at it. It was shaking, but not nearly as bad as her knees.

     She dropped backwards onto her couch and pulled her hair loose from the top knot she was wearing it in today. Grabbing the brush she kept nearby, she began tugging and brushing it out. Doing this gave her time to gather her composure once again and relieve the pressure she felt building up in her head. When she was relaxed, braiding it and winding it up again seemed like too much work so she tied it back and pulled the crate toward her.

     It was immediately apparent once she started going through the collection of datapads that they were all connected to various contacts, dealings and situations that her intelligence officer had been involved with up to the last mission. Leia sighed and pressed her hand to her face, holding back tears. It was her fault Korr Sella had been on Hosnian Prime when it had met its end by the First Order’s use of its monstrous weapon. Yet another mark on her conscience.

     She thumbed the power button on the largest of the datapads she found, turning it on and beginning a scan of its contents. She found most of the files to be the expected dispatches and reports that one would expect an intelligence officer to send and receive, with nothing more scandalous than some entertaining side notes about who was sleeping with which senator and other tidbits that might have one day come in handy, if most of the Senate and other New Republic politicians hadn’t been destroyed along with her officer. Some had survived, not having been in the system when the planets had exploded. This information could still be useful, if she were ever to go back to the Senate, if one was ever formed again. She wondered where these morbid thoughts were coming from.

     Sighing yet again, she set the datapad down and went into the kitchen to fetch a large cup of caf in preparation for a long evening of scanning the rest of the datapads. While waiting for the water to heat, she heard her own datapad’s distinctive chime coming from her office. She retrieved it and returned to her kitchen, thumbing the button to turn it on.

     Seeing the sender listed for the message, she felt the blood drain from her face and her hands go numb. It was from Korr Sella, dated as sent today. An unexpected hope teased her as she accessed the message, so much so she messed up her personal security code twice before it was accepted and the message opened. That hope was dashed by the first line of the message.

     “Greetings, General Leia Organa-Solo. If you are reading this message, then it is because I have met an untimely demise. Hopefully, my datapads have all been delivered to you as I instructed.” Leia stopped reading long enough to find her way back to her office desk and fall into her chair there. Once securely seated, she continued reading the message. “I hope you have been given my datapads and other items listed in my possessions, as you are the only one I can trust with everything that they contain. This message contains encryption codes that are being embedded into your personal datapad that will enable you to access all the files on my datapads. I hope you find them useful in our continued fight to keep the Republic and its ideals alive. It has been a pleasure to serve you, General Organa. I wish you Good Health and Long Life. Regards, Korr Sella.”

     Leia could practically hear the dry wit and warmth in the business like tones Korrie had used when trying to keep her emotions in check. Even from the darkness of death, Korrie was prodding her, encouraging her, supporting her as they pursued the dream they had shared. She indulged herself in memories for a few minutes before forcing herself out of her chair and back into the main room, her personal datapad in hand.

     Hours later, after many files scanned and catalogued for various future uses, Leia pulled an old pad from the crate. The first thing she noticed about it was the old seal on its back. It was one that Korrie's father had used as his own personal mark. This must be one she had inherited from him along with the job, Leia mused.

     It unlocked, same as the others, to reveal only one file. The file was massive in size, enough to fill up the datapad’s memory to near-capacity. Leia checked on the creation date out of curiosity. Nearly sixteen years ago, it showed, begun as she had thought by Korrie's father, Martis Sella. The encryption on the file not only required the access code given by Korr Sella’s files from her message, but also proof of her own actual security clearance as part of the New Republic government and a reading of her retina and thumbprint as proof of her identity.

     Nervous now and even more curious about the file and why Korrie had added such extra measures to protect the content, Leia hesitated before opening it. The impression of standing on the lip of a chasm came to her and wouldn’t be dismissed. Taking a deep breath, she triggered the file to open, wondering if the information inside was really that important, enough to be treated with such caution.

     At first the records inside the file seemed banal and disappointing, being nothing much on first scan but payments made over the years to one specific account. The money seemed to come from one main source, then was filtered through various means to make the source unidentifiable and the payments to that account untraceable, both where it came from and who was making them. The bank the account was held in was known for its less than stellar reputation, being someplace to keep money without questions of any kind being asked about it. Leia knew it from Han having used it in the past when accepting payments from supporters of the Resistance hadn’t wanted it known that they were backing them. Also, during the time of the Empire, when it had been dangerous to openly back the Rebellion, she herself had managed a few accounts there as well.

     This account had been in use these many years gone by only one individual, someone located on a planet that wouldn’t have been familiar to Leia except for the events that had just happened in the last year. Jakku.

     Leia scrolled down the list of records, bypassing the payments and looking for anything that would give her more information about where the money came from. She knew from what she’d been told that Rey had been left on Jakku, in the care of the junk dealer Unkar Plutt, but that was not as important to her as why. Or by whom. Who would leave a vulnerable young child in the hands of someone like Plutt, on such a desolate place as Jakku? Leia had been angry on Rey’s behalf when she’d learned this from her, and felt that same anger rising in her now. She was determined to track the responsible party down and demand justice for Rey, and answers about her family and her past.

     Finally reaching the last of the files in the long list, she found the first one created on this datapad and opened it. It was a transmission received by Korrie's father asking him to meet on Corellia in regards to payment for delivered cargo. Leia felt her hackles rise, wondering if that was a reference to Rey. Attached to the file of the transmission was a personal note written by Martis. She read it through, once then again, trying to digest the information revealed in it. He’d been succinct in his words, a trait reflected by his daughter and appreciated by Leia, but still, it was a lot to take in all at once. She knew after the second reading she was going to have to go through it several times over and dissect it all to make sure she understood everything it was telling her.

     Her quiet shock at the implications of what she had just learned was interrupted by the chime of her door, indicating someone was wanting to see her. Sudden fear shot through her at the thought of anyone else seeing this file. With one motion, she closed it, triggering the layers of security again and turned off the pad. Before she stood to answer the door, she dropped it back in the crate and set a stack of other datapads on top of it.


	4. Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> General Hux and Captain Phasma start down a new path together.

General Hux hated tardiness almost as much as he hated disorder. Which is why he make it a point to be exactly on time for any engagement, be it military or otherwise. He stepped into the executive dining room at precisely 2100 hours to meet with Captain Phasma as she had requested. She was waiting for him, which was his first surprise of the night. 

Her normal practice was to always be five minutes late to everything. She never entered in a rush or looked like she had forgotten what time the meeting had started. She always appeared perfectly in control when she entered, just five minutes late. Hux suspected she planned it that way on purpose, just to show her own control and importance. 

His curiosity sufficiently piqued, he greeted her with a nod as she rose at his approach, then waited until she was reseated before taking his own seat. She might be a fellow officer, lower ranked than him even, but she was still a woman and his upbringing insisted he wait. Once seated, he straightened the utensils and slid his water glass to precisely sit at the point of the bread knife, then tapped the plate until it was exactly centered. Only a few millimeters, but it was necessary to get it just right. He looked up, a slight scowl on his face, expecting to see a hidden smirk in her expression like he caught on so many others the first time they ate with him. Again he was surprised, as she gave him a curt nod. His estimation of her rose a notch.

“Well, Captain Phasma,” he said as he folded his napkin precisely in thirds and laid it over one leg, “what is it you wished to speak to me about?”

Captain Phasma looked like she would rather be wearing her armor right now. Instead she was dressed in her formal uniform, stiff but elegant with her short blonde hair slicked back and everything tidy, including her nails. Hux thought she was a bit more formal than was necessary, but chalked it up to being here in the executive dining room, meeting with him. This was not someplace she came very often. She began speaking very softly and he soon forgot all about her appearance.

“I’ve asked you to meet with me today, General Hux,” she began without preamble, “to discuss an idea that I have concerning a certain person we’ve had to deal with recently. I know how you dislike him and consider him a waste of time and resources and ultimately nothing but a distraction.” She paused as though measuring his reaction. 

Hux knew who she was referring to and agreed with everything she’d stated so far. His curiosity at her reason for bringing all this up was the only thing that kept him in his seat to hear her out. 

“This person is,” she paused again and Hux took the opportunity to nod at her and waved his hand before interrupting. 

“No need to name him. We both know who he is.” Hux did his best not to show his distaste, but the thought of that man always made his blood boil. He placed the blame for the destruction of Starkiller Base directly on Kylo Ren, along with a multitude of other, smaller, misdeeds. He noticed Phasma had her hand held up to him. He breathed in deeply through his nostrils and motioned for her to continue.

“Thank you for hearing me out, General Hux. I believe I have a solution that will not only strengthen our position within the First Order, but also utilize this person as one of our most valued resources.” She held out a datapad to him. “Please, take a look at these facts I’ve gathered for you.”

His curiosity at an all-time high, Hux took the proffered pad and read the information presented on its screen. He inhaled sharply at the last and read through the whole thing once again. Thoroughly impressed and intrigued, he gave Phasma a sharp look.

“Do you think this will really work?” He asked her.

She actually grinned at him, the right side of her mouth and nose wrinkling up in a feral snarl that was reflected in her eyes. Hux realized the challenge had her more excited than he’d ever seen her before.

‘Yes, General, I do. You know I worked with your father, was trained by him, in fact, right?” She barely waited for his nod. “If he doesn’t kill us, then we stand to gain a huge advantage by retraining this person of interest and redirecting his misguided loyalty so that we are the ones he becomes loyal to.”

Hux had to test her on this. 

“But Captain, I thought a soldier’s loyalty should only be to the First Order?” His sly, calculating grin matched hers in ferocity.

“Indeed, General,” she replied, her gaze even more intense now, “and if he is loyal to us and we, as the leaders of the First Order, are loyal to the First Order, then it becomes the same thing.” She raised her eyebrow, emphasizing everything she was leaving unsaid.

Hux was impressed by her ability to refrain from babbling on and on about her ideas and plans. What she was suggesting, what she was implying, bordered on treason as it was, without being put into words. It would definitely be construed as such if anyone else found out. The challenge, the risk and the reward, thrilled him.

“Very well,” he said, handing the datapad back. She waved it back to him and pulled out a matching one. Tapping the screen, she pointed at a discreet security symbol in the upper corner of hers and then at the matching symbol on his screen. The two pads were linked and the connection was highly secure, requiring their specific owners to access the contents or risk having everything deleted and destroyed. His estimation of her rose even higher. 

“How do we begin?” He asked her.

Phasma smiled and tapped the screen of her datapad, showing him more information. 

 

They left the dining room soon after dinner, not wanting to raise too many questions about them being together. Not right now anyway, at the beginning of their plan. They agreed that he would send for her on the morrow so they could go someplace safe from prying eyes and ears to discuss more details and plans for the possibilities and work out necessary contingency plans.

In his personal quarters, Hux sent out orders for a special delivery that he’d had in mind for the last couple of months. He’d discovered this particular thing a while ago, but hadn’t wanted to acquire it until he was sure it could be fully utilized. Now that he was certain it could be, he wanted it here as soon as possible. 

After that was handled, he checked on the whereabouts of Kylo Ren. Finding him still planetside at some training facility Snoke had ordered him to, Hux then checked on the other Knights of Ren. Kylo’s asshole squad, he always called them in his head. He’d always found them to be brash and overbearing, swaggering around and acting superior just because they could use the Force. He grinned in anticipation. He would check with Phasma when they met, but he was sure she’d included them in her calculations.

The next morning, under the guise of Phasma meeting him for some personal training in melee combat, she confirmed that she did indeed have plans for the Knights. Hux was pleased. He shared the news of his special delivery with her and had the pleasure of seeing her surprised and pleased. 

Finally, with all plans made and set in motion, he had to ask the one question he had remaining. She had declared him competent enough with most of the weapons he had shown her as ones he knew and had trained in, but now they were taking a break from an intense workout using staffs, something she’d determined he needed to be better at. He’d been insulted, until he went up against her and was dumped on his rear five times in a row without any ceremony or apology from her, just a grin and a helping hand up. He wiped his face and hands clear of sweat and watched her do the same, though not as much. She looked up and caught him watching her. When she tilted her head in inquiry, he asked the question he’d had from the beginning.

“Why are you doing this?” 

‘Because you suck at staffwork,” she replied, her face too straight to be anything less than a deadpan joke. Her sense of humor was a lot more wicked and dry than he’d expected. He shook his head and looked around. No one else was anywhere near them, but he leaned on his staff and tipped his head down to hide his mouth, then asked her again.

“Why are you doing this? What made you, Madame First Order, decide to take this course of action?”

She didn’t answer him right away, simply narrowed her eyes and stared at him. He was glad. He hated it when people just opened their mouths and let word fall out randomly instead of taking the time to organize and use them to the best of their ability. It took her several minutes of studied staring at him, to the point of making him wonder if she was ever going to answer, before she did.

“When Han Solo and his Wookiee and that...traitor,” Hux noticed the emphasis on that last word, “were so easily able to break into the base and all that stood between them and the shields were my codes, I felt shock that there weren’t more safeguards in place. And then they blew up the oscillator from the inside, not to mention getting that prisoner and just leaving out of here without anyone stopping them. I knew after that, something needed to change.” She shifted closer to him, leaning on her own staff to hide her intensity. “I mean, these people had taken out two Death Stars. You’d think we could avoid yet another of the same costly mistake.”

“Then, when it became clear that the base was lost, the only thing that Snoke even cared about retrieving was his pet. Not evacuating personnel, not dumping the database to save all our intel, just his charge. Even you, Hux were only saved because he ordered you to retrieve his wayward charge and bring him here. He used you as a rescuer and the rest of the crew be damned.” She paused to wipe her face again, though Hux hadn’t noticed any sweat. She continued.

“That’s what started me thinking. I thought about it over these past months and looked it over from many angles. I am still, and always will be, loyal to the First Order. Snoke, in my mind, is not the First Order and it is obvious that he has his own agenda, as does his pet. I’m not sure who Snoke answers to, so I don’t know how loyal they might be. But you, General Hux, I know you want more than to be just another pawn in this game. I was trained by your father in the techniques and ideas he developed for training our Stormtroopers. I am confident that between us, we can sway our person of interest’s loyalty to our side, along with his troop. This leaves Snoke without his tools. With all of us working together, we can make ourselves into the most efficient and effective unit anyone will ever have seen. Our first steps will be dangerous, but our end goal is worth it. We will be in control of our own destiny when we win.”

Phasma finished her impassioned speech and fell silent, turning away from Hux. he realized he’d never heard her talk for so long. He considered all she said as well as what she had left unsaid, which wasn’t much. From all the angles he could see, the end goal was one that he’d risk life and limb for. Not to mention the personal pleasure of bringing Kylo Ren and his group of ruffian Knights to heel and turning them into his own hounds. 

He grinned and held out his hand to Phasma. She looked appropriately surprised. He normally never offered his hand to anyone. She grinned back at him and took it. They shook, sealing their plans with this bond. A thrill ran through Hux as he felt like finally he was in control and his dream was becoming real. He was going to rule the Galaxy!


	5. Preparations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Luke go on a trip that will lead to more discovery than expected.

Rey woke up in the early morning as she always did and lay in bed, watching the light from the sunrise slowly wake up the colors in the rock wall opposite the slitted windows of her bedroom, her bedclothes rumpled and twisted around her, her thoughts drifting back to her dreams of the night before. When her thoughts returned to contemplate the part of the dream where she’d rolled over and found the man in her bed, she found herself thinking of Kylo Ren. 

The man in her bed had been taller than her, like he had been when leaning over her during her interrogation. The thought that it could have been Kylo Ren in her bed in the dream, with his arms around her, the length of his body hard against her, brought heat to her face as well as other parts of her, a very pleasant tingle that quickly became something more. At least until she remembered the part about him biting her. 

Her heart skipped a beat or two and she jumped up and out of bed. Gathering the bedclothes up in a bundle, she dumped them into the hamper in the corner of her room. She changed from her night clothes and added them to the hamper, dressing warmly before dragging the now-full basket down to the laundry room. 

Their living quarters were inside the rock of the island that Master Luke had name Beru, after his aunt. Some parts were obviously older, like the living quarters, carved from the rock by hand and ancient tools and smoothed over centuries of use. Others were definitely newer, such as the training rooms above, hewn by recent technology and still bearing sharp corners and tidy floors and walls. The ancient ruins at the top of the island were still standing despite their age and neglect, silent testaments to the cleverness of long departed inhabitants but no more useable than any unformed cave. 

The laundry room was below the sleeping quarters, on the same level as the kitchen and dining area, opposite the main living area and connected to the baths, all of the water being sourced from some unknown well deep within the island. The sleeping quarters occupied the middle floor, more rooms than just her’s and Luke’s but theirs had window slits that allowed the crisp breeze off the ocean and the fresh air in, colder than she was used to. The highest level contained the training rooms, with high ceilings and tall window slits that still managed to keep out the weather while allowing plenty of natural light in, revealing various levels of floors reached by stairs or some only by ropes or thin columns. 

Here in the laundry room a series of tubs, basins carved into the rock, allowed different amounts of items to be washed at one time. Depending on what was needed, she could wash just her clothes, still a novel task, or everything in the whole place, something she’d had to do a couple of times already since her arrival. Choosing one of the medium-sized basins, Rey dumped the contents of her hamper in it and removed the spout plug, placing it in the bottom of the tub to stop the water from leaving and allowing the tub to begin filling up with the water.

The sight of water freely pouring out in an endless burst still fascinated her, even while it made her shiver at the increase of the room’s humidity. She added washing powder to the mix and lowered the complicated paddle contraption that hung overhead down into the basin. It consisted of a series of paddles rotated by pulleys and gears that worked to agitate the wash and work the dirt and sweat from the clothes. Master Luke had told her it was an authentic replica of the original machine that had been here historically. She wasn't sure about that claim, but was willing to believe him as it obviously worked. 

She didn’t smell anything cooking, so went into the kitchen to make breakfast, only to find Master Luke entering from the other side door leading from the living area. He tossed her a piece of fruit.

“Are you alright?” His gaze as he asked her this question was critical, examining her as she bit into the soft juicy flesh. “Did you have trouble sleeping?”

Rey wondered if he had felt her turbulent dreams through the Force or was asking because of their confrontation last night at dinner. She shrugged.

“I had some very strange dreams and woke up crying. After that I slept fine.”

Luke nodded slowly. “When you fully tap into the Force, whether awake or in your dreams, it can leave you quite shaken.  Often you’ll see visions of the past or the future, or possibilities of the future and it’s hard to tell which is which.”

She thought about this for a moment, taking another bite and chewing it while she did. Thankfully, Luke was as patient as the rock of this island, eating his own fruit while she worked out her thoughts.

“What if what I saw wasn’t actual events, but rather symbolic ones?” She finally asked.

“Symbolic?” Luke looked thoughtful and a bit surprised to Rey. “There used to be those that claimed to make prophecies influenced by the Force, but nothing like that has been recorded in several hundred years. Not since…” He shook his head but didn’t elaborate more.

“A Force prophet? Like for a church?” Rey remembered meeting an old man on Jakku in the Sacred Village of Tuanul that had claimed to worship the Force and even be a priest of such a church, but Lor San Tekka had only told her stories, of Jedi in general and of Luke Skywalker in particular, as well as Darth Vader and his master, Emperor Palpatine, otherwise known as Darth Sidious. She’d discounted them as over-exaggerations or just myths from his religion, until she’d met Han Solo and he’d confirmed it all as true. Now she stood before one of those legends and he was telling her about prophecies. 

At the mention of a church, Luke’s expression went suspiciously bland. He shook his head. “It doesn’t have anything to do with religion. They can be part of one, I suppose, but the gift isn’t in most Force users. I’ve seen vision myself, but they’ve always been of those close to me.” He attempted to smile but it came off as a bit grim. “They’ve never been symbolic.”

He set the pit of the fruit he’d finished on the table to dry so it could be replanted and motioned at her fruit still in her hand. “Finish up. We have a long day ahead of us.” This time, his grin was mischievous.

A bit nervous and apprehensive, Rey nodded. The last time he’d given her that grin - she shook her head, not even wanting to be reminded how sore she’d been afterwards. Luke grinned more and left the room, leaving two small packs on the table next to the fruit pit. 

Taking the packs with her, Rey went to the food bins and added dried meat, mostly fish, along with dried fruits and vegetables, to each. The islands they visited in their travels often didn’t have any easily obtainable food, so it was always wise to take some along. She remembered the storm that had blown up on them one time unexpectedly, leaving them stranded for three days on a barren, rocky outcropping until they could call the hoverskiff to come pick them up. She’d been glad to have packed extra food then as well, though most of the time they didn’t need it. Luke never bothered her about it, so it had become part of their routine. 

Thinking about that, she added more to both packs and then grabbed two large canteens from a rack and filled them up with cold, fresh water from the drinking spout. Free-flowing water amazed her still, but not as much as the ocean did. For all its wetness, it might as well be sand, she had learned. She remembered tasting it for the first time and grinned at the memory. She hadn’t believed Luke when he explained why it wasn’t drinkable. How could a little salt make such a difference? That had been her train of thought until she’d tried for herself. 

She headed up to the training level, stopping to grab her staff and the thin shoes she’d kept from Jakku. They had been her only pair of shoes for the last several years, but now she found them the best ones to wear when climbing and clambering around the many rock faces and escarpments of the islands they visited. 

Master Luke was waiting for her in the uppermost training area, the one with vaulted ceilings and slim, elegant columns carved out of the black rock of the island. Nodding approval at the weight of the pack that she handed him, he turned and proceeded up the narrow stairs that rose along the back wall without saying a word. Rey sensed tension in him, though from what she couldn’t pin down.

They entered a tunnel at the top of the stairs that led them up to one of the ancient ruins scattered about, allowing them to come out on the top of the island unseen from anywhere, most especially from the air. She tried not to fidget as Master Luke slipped into a light trance and did his normal scan of the surrounding area. The light from the sun was just over the edge of the horizon when he was finally satisfied and stepped out of the building. Even then, he continued to scan around them as they made their way down the ancient stairs that wrapped around the island’s outer shell. 

When they reached the flat area where Chewbacca had first landed the Millennium Falcon, they turned and headed along the edge of the wall to the dock where the hoverskiff was secured. This time, Master Luke led them past that point, to the edge of the dock where it dropped off into the deep ocean. He stopped and turned to face the smooth wall of rock at the end of the dock. Touching a small crack high up on the wall with his artificial hand, he held out his left hand toward the open water there.

Rey was amazed to see the rock wall split in two and swing outward, revealing a neat hanger bay there, tucked inside the cliff. Effortlessly, a large boat slid out and up to the dock, coming to rest next to the skiff.

“Grab the rope,” Luke commanded, as the doors swung shut. She reached up and grabbed the rope hanging from the prow of the boat, feeling it tug against the restraint as Luke released his hold on it.

Soon they were on their way, passing several islands that they’d visited before and out into the wide open ocean. They traveled like this for several hours in silence. Rey was glad for the time to think about the dreams, to take them in from a conscious perspective and ponder their meanings. It also gave her time to think about the memories that had surfaced thanks to those dreams. Or was it all one dream, she wondered. She was certain that the last part was one, but the forest and the bit in her bed didn’t seem to have any connection to that last part. Well, maybe one, she corrected herself. A blush crept up her cheeks at that thought. She was glad Master Luke’s voice broke her reverie right then. 

“I know your dreams were probably very personal,” he started off, his tone hesitant, “but when you are ready, I would like to hear about them.” He shrugged. “Often times, speaking them aloud, as well as getting someone else’s perspective, can bring insight.” He seemed very nonchalant about the suggestion, Rey thought, more so than necessary. Looking at him for a long few minutes, she go the distinct impression he was itching with curiosity but didn’t want to do anything that might keep her from sharing. She did her best to keep a straight face and nodded slowly, attempting a thoughtful demeanor. 

“I’ll think that over,” she replied, already sure that she was going to share the dreams’ contents with him, but feeling mischievous enough about it to make him suffer through the anticipation. The notion that she might not be taking this seriously enough briefly passed through her conscious thought. She shook her head to chase that idea away. She had no idea how else to handle this whole concept of dreams and visions and living out what she had once considered only myths and stories told to her by people looking for some gleam of hope in an otherwise bleak existence. 

Scavenging junk for a living was no easy task and most people on Jakku were there due to debts they owed and could never pay off. The villagers of Tuanul, Sacred Village though it was, had been there by choice, many of them still retaining ownership of their own or group-owned space-worthy transports, though none had seemed interested in going anywhere. It had never occurred to her to ask for transport off the planet. After all, she’d been waiting for her family to return for her, not trying to find them herself.

She grinned sadly at her own naivete. It seemed obvious now, painfully so, that she’d been left on Jakku on purpose, though what purpose that was she had no idea beyond what she could now see as a connection with her dead father. Thinking of that led her through the doorway in her mind that had opened up to her long forgotten early childhood. She figured she’d been about four or five at the most when she’d been left on Jakku. Old enough to know what was happening, young enough to learn how to hide it, tuck away the memories so they weren’t a vulnerability for others to exploit.

Regarding that, now that she was questioning everything about her past, she found it highly suspect that Unkar Plutt had always so conveniently found ways to have her learn things from other scavengers that she hadn’t known she needed to know. Always, she was taught these things by those who used to do them before they had come to Jakku. Now she wondered why he’d bothered, when it had never been something she needed while scavenging for him.

The Force had been something she hadn’t thought she learned either, but now, looking back, she could see that it had always been with her. It had been on Takodana that she’d first been aware of feeling it, but then it was like being in the sand and feeling it flow around her, not actually affecting her inside. It was on Starkiller Base that she’d opened herself and taken the Force in. More like let it flood through her, she thought. Like she had been an empty container and the Force was a blast of water, filling and overflowing her until she hadn’t known where she stopped and it began. 

She’d also felt him, Kylo Ren, and the Force flowing through him as well, to the point where she had known where and when he was going to move next even as he moved there. That had made it almost too easy to beat him back and take him down, until he started blocking her sensing of him. Then they’d struggled, there in the cold snow, equal in power and made equal in strength through her physicality enhanced by her tapping into the Force, his body, normally strong now weakened by wounds and what seemed to her now to have been a desire not to hurt her. She could tell that, looking back on his actions now. At the time it had just seemed like he’d been weakening, something she had taken advantage of.

Her mind shifted into detail mode, bringing back to her the feel of their bodies straining against each other, his breath in her ear, her own heart pounding as they struggled with each other. She felt that almost familiar warmth blossom inside her again, brought on by the thought of how close they’d been at that moment. 

The bump and scrape of the boat’s hull on a rocky beach brought her attention back to the present. The sun was high overhead in the soft blue of the sky, telling her she’d been lost in her thoughts for several hours during the trip here. She looked up in time to see Master Luke move to the prow, grab the rope and leap out onto the shingle of rock that formed the beach of this island, a good four meters above the water line and away from the boat. He then proceeded to draw the boat up and out of the water more than half way, using the rope only to keep it straight. 

Opening herself to the Force, she reached out her senses to try and tell what and how he did it. She could feel it, flowing up under the boat toward Luke. He seemed to simply be drawing it to him as easily as if it were just the rope. Now that she had herself open to the Force, she was amazed that she hadn’t sensed it before, same as she thought every time since the first, there on Starkiller Base.

“Rey, come on.” Master Luke’s voice struck against her thoughts, scattering them into pieces in her mind. She welcomed the interruption for bringing her back to what was happening and kept her from thinking more about how she was starting to feel whenever she thought about him. Kylo Ren is a monster, she told herself firmly. He’d killed his father and captured her, tortured Finn’s friend Poe and worked with the people who’d taken Finn from his family. There was no reason for her to be thinking there was anything between them, that there should be anything between them. Having given herself that sharp talking-to, she clambered out of the boat, hers and Master Luke’s packs in hand, trying not to think about how it had felt when they had met in the Force, in that link or whatever it had been.

The island they had come to was one of the largest she’d seen since coming to this planet. The rocky beach led up to a green meadow surrounded by rock walls that extended up to high cliffs and then up to the one peak that dominated the skyline ahead of them. Thrusting up into the clouds that were gathered overhead now, this peak looked to be several hundred meters high. Immediately, Rey wanted to climb it. She began scanning its hard, grey sides for ways to go, a shiver of anticipation shooting up her spine, wondering if she really could. 

Even after she had to climb back onto the boat several times to help Master Luke get all the equipment off it and up to the meadow at the base of the mountain, she still had a grin on her lip, continuing to scan the mountain face, planing possible routes. She had climbed Star Destroyers nearly as tall, inside and out, as well as some of the cliffs on Jakku, but nothing on this scale. 

Luke watched her quizzically, his eyes crinkling at their corners whenever she smiled at him full on, which was every time she caught him watching her. He gave her some time to calm down before breaking in on her excitement.

“You’re very excited, Rey. Do I want to know why?” He asked her this while they ate lunch, their camp already starting to be shadowed by the mountain as the afternoon sun moved behind it. 

“I want to climb that mountain,” she replied around a mouthful of dried fish and fruit, pointing up at the peak, too eager to finish chewing before speaking. 

“Oh? Is there a reason why?” He wondered if she had guessed their reason for coming here or was just being her usual adventurous self.

She finished the mouthful of food she had just stuffed in her face, chewing it slowly and thoughtfully before answering this time. “Well, I know you didn’t bring me here for no reason, so I’m sure you have one. Really though, I just want to climb it to see if I can.”

Luke nodded. “That mountain is the reason why we came to this island,” he said, then smiled at the eagerness on her face. “It is not the one we’re going to climb this time though.” He chuckled as her face fell in disappointment and pointed at the smaller cliff face to the left of the main peak, “That is the one we are here to climb.”

“Why not the big one?” She asked.

“I figured we would practice on the smaller one before we tackle that monster. That way, we know how each other will react and how we climb.” His smile at her nod of understanding was gratifying to Rey. “I think if we start in the morning, then that should give us enough time to make it all the way up and down again. What do you think?”

Rey looked up at the smaller cliff. Smaller in this case was definitely a relative term, as the climb still appeared to be close to 500 meters. Compared to the insides of Starkiller Base or the Star Destroyers she’d scaled on Jakku, there wasn’t as many handholds, but she knew there was equipment they had unloaded that would help them there. 

She thought about why they were climbing this one. Building their rapport was one reason, and climbing together would do it. The question she asked herself was why someone like Master Luke would want to climb the peak towering behind them. She’d heard rumors about him in amongst the myths and legends told by Lorr San Tekka and others in the Sacred Villages. 

“Yes, we can do it, no problem.” She tipped her head to the side. “But why?”

“Why are we climbing the smaller one first?” Luke looked at her oddly. 

“No, why are we practicing to climb the big one?” Rey watched him for clues that would confirm her suspicions.

“You are the quickest student I’ve ever had, Rey,” Luke replied. Rey looked at him suspiciously, having learned that when he started off with a compliment like that it usually meant she was going to have to work at something. “Why do you think you and I are going to climb to the top of that towering peak?”

Rey felt her gut tighten like it always did right before she found something of great value. She grinned and blurted out, “To find the Jedi Temple you’ve been searching for all these years!”


	6. Tests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren goes through some tests before beginning training. He encounters Captain Phasma and endures a nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Self-harm

Kylo Ren reported to the training center on the planet that the Finalizer was orbiting as Snoke had requested of him. He always considered Snoke’s commands as requests, even though he almost always obeyed them. They were what he wanted to do most of the time anyways, he told himself. Suggestions to do otherwise, to disobey, were usually easy to disregard, as they only came from that weak part of himself that he’d buried long ago with every other part of his past. Except his grandfather, of course. Even then, he only acknowledged the Dark Lord, Darth Vader, that had come into existence at the end of the Clone Wars. That was when his grandfather had truly become master of his own destiny, Kylo felt. Kylo strove for that same ascension for himself. For that, he needed to rise as any Sith Lord did, by taking the place of his master. This meant he needed to find a master, and Snoke was no Sith.

Which meant at the moment, neither was he. His frustration at this was immense and he was beginning to question whether Snoke was ever going to deliver on his promise to finish his training. So far, after having to wait until he healed, he hadn’t been shown any of the techniques or abilities that his studies said he needed to become one. Back when he was younger and had started down this dark path, he had decided that if he was going to be castigated, ostracized and ultimately, cast out because of his abilities in the Force, then he would become like his grandfather, the most feared man in the galaxy. He’d had a plan for that, involving finding his uncle, Luke Skywalker, and completing what Darth Vader had begun.  


Now, on the verge of entering this training facility as Snoke had requested, after his convalescence, after that vigil of obedience, he felt that the promise was about to be fulfilled. Excitement gave his stride an extra snap to it.  


Walking down the corridors, head held high, wearing his new mask, he felt bold enough to reach out with the Force to touch that link between him and the girl. Between himself and Rey, he corrected, daring to say her name in his mind if not out loud. He’d discovered the link while in recovery and wondered if it was really her. Over the next few months, he’d studied it, especially when he thought he could feel her through it, but had shied away from fully engaging it, fearing she would feel him and reject him yet again. Then just a few days ago, while going through his meditation regime, he'd felt her reach out to him. They'd touched, but only briefly, before he'd felt too vulnerable and warned her off. The last thing he wanted was for Snoke to discover their link. Today, his confidence high, he reached out again to see if she would respond or at least, not push him away.  


She seemed excited yet tired, though more like the kind that comes from strenuous work rather than sleeplessness, as she used to. He wondered if she had been training with Skywalker. This thought brought an impression of him close by her. Kylo veered away from thinking about his uncle, as he didn’t want to acknowledge the tension between them while in contact with her. Anything other than animosity between him and his former teacher was one of the things he had put behind him. He pushed the link, letting her know that he was there, connected to her. He felt her surprise, tinged with fear and suspicion, but beneath it, curiosity.  


He grinned behind his mask, feeling pleased at this response. If she was curious, then that initial reaction she’d had to him could change. He reached out again, only to find she’d turned her attention elsewhere. Again that sense of excitement, eagerness really, came from her, along with some slight bit of trepidation. He wondered what she was worried about.  


This line of thought didn’t get a chance to continue for very long as he had arrived at his destination. The personnel at the training center were mostly droids, but here at the room where he’d been instructed to report, there were four, no five, people as well. A human female greeted him, dressed in white and asking for his mask and cloak even before the doors had completely shut behind him. He got the feeling they’d been waiting for him as another female, this one a Bothan, stepped forward to assist in taking his mask after he gave his cloak and cowl to the first woman. A look of surprise crossed their faces as he removed the mask. He figured it was because of the scar that cut down his forehead and across his right cheek. Most people would have had it removed after it was healed, but he’d made sure the doctors had fully understood that it was to be healed, but otherwise left alone. He considered it a sign of their link, of their connection, showing that she could have killed him and chose not to.  


After they took his outer clothing away, another human female brought him some clothes to change into and led him to a small room off the main area to do so in. He was glad, as he had never liked taking his clothes off with others looking on. Too much of that as a child growing up with parents that were not only famous, but practically royalty had made him cherish his privacy. He tried to draw the shirt over his shoulders, wincing at the twinge he still got in the right one even now, only to find that it was too small. The pants were the same. He shook his head and dressed in his own again, leaving his outer tunic and belt off and sitting on the bench in the room. Stepping out of the room, he came upon the first human female waiting for him.  


“You need to change into the clothes given to you,” she admonished him, stepping forward fearlessly. Kylo Ren grinned at her, a lopsided charming grin that he had learned would affect most anyone he used it on.  


“I need clothes that fit me, then,” he murmured, holding out the pile of ill-fitted clothes in question. Her brashness melted away and she motioned to the Bothan to take the offending clothes away.  


“Oh, well then, in that case,” she preened for him now, smiling up at him, “we’ll just have to make do.” She fluttered her eyelids at him. “As long as those you are wearing don’t interfere with your movements or have anything that would block our scanners, such as metal plates or threads, or any other substances, then you’ll be fine.” Her words ended on a purr worthy of the Bothan, her hand held out to indicate which way he should go now. “This way, please.”  


The next few hours were spent going through tests and trials where his physical measurements and abilities were checked and rechecked for strength and response and a dozen or more other things that he wasn’t sure of. He’d been through something similar just before he was released from his recovery care less than a month ago. He didn’t bother with questions, knowing he wouldn’t get any real answers, just reassurances that everything was necessary for whatever tests they were doing.  


All the personnel in this area turned out to be female, three humans in total, along with the Bothan and a Twi’lek, and all but the human woman in charge of the tests were quickly swayed by his practiced grin and affected charming manner. The one in charge was all business and seriousness, ordering specific tests and eyeing the results with a stern, evaluating stare. Eventually she came to him, her expression now showing a more friendly manner.  


“You are a fine specimen of a human, Commander. “ Kylo didn’t correct her on his rank. Explaining that he was outside the normal rank and file of the military was not worth the hassle right now. She continued, showing him a series of charts as she spoke. “We’ve done all the requested tests for the training that you’ve been assigned and we will have to re-calibrate the equipment to take into account not only your size,” she gave him an appreciative once over with her gaze, “but also for your strength and endurance levels.” She closed his files and motioned to the four women waiting on the other side of the room. The Bothan groomed her fur, the two humans smiled and the Twi’lek winked at him.  


“You have quarters assigned to you here at the facility during your stay. You may choose to have some company while you relax and wait for the equipment to be made ready.” She gave him another appreciative look and waited for his reply.  


Kylo wished he was wearing his mask right now. Then he could have easily ignored the suggestion, if it would have been given at all, intimidated all the technicians and left the facility for his rooms back on the Finalizer. He was not interested in spending the night here, and right now, the only female that interested him was the one he could sense in his head, Instead, he turned up the charm in his smile and voice as he replied to the offer. “Thank you for the kind offer, Madame. Unfortunately, I will have to decline for tonight. I am still recovering from my recent...physical ailments and need to rest and meditate. Perhaps some other time.” He gave her a wink and a nod, grabbed his mask and cloak from the shelf by the door and beat a hasty retreat from the room.

His quarters were easily located. All the service droids in the facility were linked to the same datahub, so stopping one and asking for directions yielded the answer without too much hassle. Kylo wondered what other training went on here as it was a very large facility, but didn’t bother inquiring from any of the droids. There was no need to raise suspicions by possibly asking about something that could be found in the database with very little effort.  


Once in his rooms, he pulled out a couple of miniature datapads from inside his belt and set them down on the desk that stood in the main area. It had its own built-in datapad that was not nearly as secure as he had expected. Activating his own pads, they made quick work of the security locks and gave him all the access he needed to the database while covering his tracks to keep anyone from knowing he’d been in it except for minor, expected uses. He didn’t have anything specific in mind that he wanted to find, but he liked the freedom of access as well as knowing what was going on wherever the First Order’s systems reached. That was how he’d found all the pieces of the map for his plan, except that last one. Even then, he’d managed to locate that last piece, just not acquire it.  


The lack of that last piece irked him still, though knowing that she was where it had led to gave him great satisfaction. Eventually, he would go there as well. This thought brought his mind back to contemplating her and the bond they had between them now. She’d been busy the last time he’d reached out, during one particularly boring test, and he’d been careful not to distract her. He noticed more about her now as well. For one thing, she was no longer hungry.  


He’d often wondered in the past why he had always felt so hungry, even before they’d bonded. He could eat a full meal and still want more. Until he’d found out about her he had blamed it on his weak flesh. Now that he knew it had been her, the one he’d dreamed of, the thought of why she’d been so hungry all the time made him angry.  


Thinking about this for a few minutes, he activated the datapad in the desk and pulled up all the information he could find on Jakku. The more he read, the angrier he became, until he had to finally stop reading or risk exploding in a fit of rage. Even then, he could feel it rising in him and decided he needed an outlet for it or he would never get any sleep.  


He left his rooms and headed for the nearest exercise room, following the map he’d memorized earlier. There weren’t very many occupants of the training facility out and about this time of day, as it was actually the middle of the graveyard shift and most normal personnel were retired for the night, except those on active duty. Still, there were a few people making their ways to various destinations along his route. All were subjected to his scowl and the aura of anger he was projecting at the moment. He’d never been one to hide his emotions and nowadays even less so. In his experience, those who knew how he was feeling were more likely to get out of his way and let him take care of his business without any meddling or interference. General Hux was one exception to this norm.  


To his surprised annoyance, the other exception to this was in the exercise room when he entered. Captain Phasma was in the midst of a very intense workout involving a large, interconnected machine holding lots of weights attached to her body by various cables. Kylo halted just inside the doorway, taken aback at her presence. His anger warred with the sudden desire to go back to his room as he watched her. After several moments passed without her even looking at him, and no sign of anyone else coming into the room, he moved to the training mats at the far end away from the workout machines.  


He picked out one of the wooden pugil sticks from the racks on the wall and examined it. Yet another annoyance that he had to use one of these inferior pieces, having left his own behind as he had not expected to have to stay here overnight. He tossed the pugil stick aside, not liking how it was weighted. He checked one after the other, rejecting them all until finding one that felt close to right and would suffice for tonight. Beginning with warmups, he started his normal workout routine, keeping his aggression and anger under control until he began to sweat. Then he removed his outer layer of clothing, leaving only form-fitting knitted pants and top on to cover the scars on his body. Kicking off his footwear as a final move, he took up the first form in the style of sword-fighting that he had developed over the years. As he moved through the levels, his anger burned bright and he released it, closing his eyes and imagining ways to exact toll on those it was directed at.  


“I think they’re dead now.” Phasma’s voice broke his concentration just as he was finishing a particularly vicious stabbing lunge. If not for years of training, he probably would have fouled it up and ended on the floor, tripped by his pugil stick. Instead he opened his eyes and scowled at her, still holding himself in the final position.  


“Who’s dead?” He had to ask after long seconds of silence passed with her just standing there looking at him.  


“Whoever that is that you’ve been murdering for the past hour,” she replied with a casual flick of her hand to indicate the space in front of him. Kylo felt his cheeks burn with the realization that she’d been watching him. He hated performing in front of others. Giving her a haughty sneer, he turned away, fully intending to ignore her until she left.  


“How about a real opponent?” Phasma spoke up behind him, sounding nonplussed by his cold shoulder. He turned back to face her, only to see her adjusting her fingerless gloves and setting herself in a ready pose, inviting him to attack. He tilted his head and lifted his pugil stick, to which she responded with an eager, feral grin and a motion of her outstretched hand.  


“Bring it!” she commanded.  


The next hour represented the most intense sparring session Kylo had ever experienced. More often than not, he found himself either disarmed or on his back or both as Phasma met his strikes and attacks with disarms and maneuvers that left him wondering how he’d survived all these years with training that he’d thought was top-notch. He got his own licks in though, enough to have her holding her side and bearing some bruises and cuts of her own by the time she signaled a stop to their session. Still grinning at him, she held out her hand. Cautiously Kylo took it and returned her firm handshake.  


“Great workout! It’s good to find someone that can keep up with me. We’ll have to do this again.” She wiped the blood from one corner of her mouth. “So, how about dinner? I know it’s late but how about tomorrow evening, say 1900?” Not waiting for him to reply and ignoring his bemused grimace, she turned away from him and headed toward the door leading to the showers.  


Kylo found himself alone in the exercise room, perplexed and curious about her invitation enough to take it seriously. On his way back to his quarters, he reflected back on the sparring match. The first few times she had dumped him on his backside, and definitely the first time she’d disarmed him, he’d considered using the Force to pay her back. When he had used it to retrieve his pugil stick the first time, her grin had gone from feral to savage, showing that she was expecting him to use it. That stung him and he refrained as a matter of pride. This gave him an inordinate amount of satisfaction after they were finished, much to his surprise. The sheer physicality of their interaction also gave him much satisfaction. It was something he hadn’t experienced in over a year, the last time having been when he had last practiced with the other Knights before Snoke had directed him to join Hux on the Starkiller project.  


Exhaustion washed through him, making him hope for a decent night’s rest for once with no help from any outside source. This was not to be. He fell into a heavy sleep quickly enough, only to be plagued by vivid dreams as he hadn’t been in months. This time they started with visions of being chased through heavy woods, thick greenery closing in and all his paths crowded by large tree trunks both towering over him and falling to block his way. Finally all ways he turned were blocked and whatever was chasing him was drawing closer, though he didn’t understand how it could reach him when he couldn’t find a way out. Turning and turning he grew dizzy until he closed his eyes and reached out with the Force, sending blast after blast out against the fallen trees to force an opening.  


Falling to his knees, he opened his eyes to find the girl watching him - her - Rey - a look of curiosity drawing her brows together as she studied him. He felt exposed under her gaze, more than he ever had in his life. He pulled his cloak around him, covering every part he could, including his head. Still he could feel her eyes looking into him, highlighting every fault, every weakness, until he was laid bare and illuminated for all to see. Then, as always, the pointing and whispering began. Unseen fingers pointed at him, voices whispered, always behind him. “Vader’s grandson. Evil. Dark. Hideous. Betrayer. Jedi-killer.” Other, more vicious things were whispered and snickered at behind him, around him, to his face by those who thought of him only as a child, who weren’t afraid.  


Or hadn’t been until he found ways to make them. Then the jeers turned to fear and all turned away, shuddering as he gazed in their direction. Snoke had always come to him in these dreams, pointing out how to take the fear and hatred and cloak himself in it to strengthen his resolve and fight back. The Darkness would come with Snoke’s appearance and bring him peace and the ability to find sleep, or some semblance of it. He had learned how to cover himself with the Darkness and blot out the accusatory stares, but not this night.  


Tonight, Snoke remained absent, allowing the abuse and the whispers to continue, allowing those who feared him to gather together and come at him in numbers, teeth bared and hands shaped into claws to rip him open. She, Rey, stood by in this dream, not stepping in to shield him as she had in the past. He reached out to her, but her image merely rippled as his hands passed through her. That’s when he knew this was one nightmare where he would have to convince his brain to let him escape.  


He began to fight those who came at him, using whatever came to hand. Sticks and rocks and his own hands and feet still were not enough to keep them all back. There were too many of them, or they were just not staying down. He wasn’t sure which it was and didn’t have time to discover as they laid into him, tearing at his body, especially his sides and stomach. Looking up at her one last time as the pain of their teeth and claws tore through him, he could see her standing over him, tears streaming down her face.  


She seemed frozen, now that he was able to view her as his body was being torn to shreds, much like she had been in the forest of Takodana when he’d used the Force to hold her still so he could get close to her. He hadn’t used the Force on her this time, so he opened himself to it and reached out to her, trying to free her from what was holding her, keeping her from him. He could feel her through the Force now, and she could feel him. Horror struck him as her torso became ripped and torn as his was, every strike to his body reflecting on hers. He cried out, trying to break the bond between them, but growing weaker with every strike made against his flesh.  


A hollow, booming laugh sounded out around them, echoing off the giant tree trunks. It sounded familiar. Kylo craned his head around, trying to find the source of that laugh. It came again, softer, not so hollow, and even more familiar. From behind her stepped a figure in dark clothes, much like the ones he usually wore. The mask was different, though one he knew. Cold struck through his chest.  


“You’re dead!”he shouted, struggling anew against the creatures holding him, eating him.  


The figure laughed again and laid a hand on Rey’s shoulder, pulling her close.  


“No!” He and Rey screamed the word in unison, only to be ignored as the black garbed figure turned her to him and bent her back in his arms. Suddenly, his uncle’s voice came through the air, loud and clear as a bell ringing through the forest.  


“Ben!”  


Everyone and everything fell silent, frozen in their places. Then he was free, as was Rey. The figure in black vanished as did all the ones holding him down.

Panting with fright and adrenaline, Kylo sat up from a deep sleep, fully awakened by the sound of his uncle’s voice. Lost for a moment in the strange room, he reached out to touch the sacred relic he kept near him at night to help him sleep, the helmet he had stolen from Vader’s shrine years before, only to find nothing in the dark of these sterile quarters. A pang of anxiety stabbed his gut. The helmet remained in his room on board the Finalizer.  


The anxiety grew, gnawing at him with its ever hungry maw. He searched for something to use to fight it back, to get it under control. The room was bare of his normal accessories and tools that he used to draw the Darkness down on him at these times of attack. No knives, no belts or whips, no chain to wrap his hands in or use on his weak flesh. The closest thing he could find to something useful was a dull stylus meant for the desk’s inlaid datapad.  


The anxiety continued to grow, making him feel that, even awake, he was being consumed bit by bit. He tried to resist, knowing that anything he did might be reflected back to her, until he could no longer stand it and had to use his only available tool to bring the soothing pain that called to the darkness. Over and over he dragged his nails across his stomach and chest, digging them deep until the flesh became abraded and raw, blood trickling down his sides and soaking the blankets beneath him. The still tender tissue of the scar on his side brought tears to his eyes as his nails laid it open.  


The Darkness came at last, bringing the numbing emptiness to sooth his nerves and ease his aching soul. The pain in his heart and mind receded as the blanket of numbing darkness covered them, dulled them, leaving him in a state that wasn’t sleep, but more like a trance of mindless focus.


	7. Bonds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey receives more training from Luke as they prepare to climb a cliff. Luke discovers the Force bond between Rey and Kylo Ren.

“To find the Jedi Temple you’ve been looking for all these years!” Rey had blurted out these words like this was the most obvious thing in the world. Luke found it almost amusing at how easily his work of the last several years was summed up. 

Luke shook his head and grinned at Rey. “It still amazes me how quick you are. You managed to piece that together out of practically nothing.”

Rey grinned back, her eyebrows crinkling down and her nose wrinkling up. “Well, it wasn’t out of nothing.” She ducked her head, embarrassed by his praise. “I heard a lot of stories from the old priest in Tuanul over the years. That’s how I knew about you….and Han.” She fell silent, reminded of Han’s death by her words.

“Tuanul?” Luke’s eyes narrowed, his gaze now sharp and focused on her. “You knew Lorr San Tekka?”

Rey nodded, then tilted her head. “You knew him too?”

Luke stroked his beard, thinking deeply. Several long moments passed as he contemplated some far distant sight, still absently stroking his beard. Rey cleared her throat, then when he still didn’t answer, spoke into the silence.

“How did you know him? He was a priest in some church. I think they worshipped the Force, at least before they were all wiped out by the First Order.”

Luke looked up at this, startled. “The First Order? Wiped them out? When was this?”

Rey glanced down, saddened that this was still news to him and that she had to deliver it. “I heard about it just before...well...just before I ran into Finn and we escaped from them in the Millennium Falcon.”

“Oh,” was his reply. Rey waited for him to say more, or perhaps get up and walk away. He did neither, instead he closed his eyes and bowed his head for several more minutes. Rey opened herself to the Force, wanting to know if his Darkness was showing again. She could feel his sadness, but the despair he’d been hiding before was there as well, though not as active, not as hotly threatening as it had been previously. She laid her hand on his where it rested on his knee, not saying anything, just offering her support.

He sighed and opened his eyes to meet her gaze, his blue eyes pale and haunted. 

“I had a padawan as quick as you once,” he murmured, giving her a slight, pained smile. “I think you’ve met him?”

Rey felt her throat tighten and her heart skip a beat. He was referring to Kylo Ren, his nephew and was trying to not make it awkward for either of them. She nodded, unable to speak at the moment. 

“Was he on Jakku as well, when…” he paused as though to gather himself, then went on, “when you and Finn met, and Lorr San Tekka was killed?”

Rey nodded again. “Yes, apparently he was after the piece of the map and Lorr San Tekka had given it to Poe already and that’s when Finn…”

“Awakened.” Luke finished her sentence quietly, a strange note in his voice. 

The term he used was not what she had expected. It caught her off-guard and made her think about what had happened in a new light of understanding. Looking at the events from that view, she realized that it was Finn’s awakening that had brought her own awareness and involvement about as well. She felt again the sensation that she was moving along at a higher rate of speed than expected, like she had during the whole time she’d been on Starkiller Base. Trying to gain a bit of control, or at least adjust to the speed things were moving at, she finished her food slowly, then wiped her sticky fingers against her pants and rose to her feet.

“Well, if we are going to climb that cliff as practice, when do we get started?” Her eager grin was her own, but she also wanted to shift away from this uncertain, touchy subject.

“In the morning.” Luke set his empty plate down and rose to his feet. “For now, we need to get some more of your training done.” His own grin was lopsided, acknowledging her deflection. When she groaned at this pronouncement, he laughed and shook his head. He knew how much she’d rather do anything other than saber practice. 

Rey didn’t know what she could do to change how she felt about using a sword or a saber, even when just practicing. Every time she used the lightsaber, or went thru the forms for using one, she felt herself getting angry and it always ended with Master Luke chiding her and setting her to meditate or do calming exercises to focus her thoughts and gain control of her feelings. Logic and rationality seemed to escape her no matter how often this happened. 

They hadn’t practiced weapons of any kind since her dream. This time, Luke surprised her by pulling out two staffs from the bundle of poles they had packed for the tents. When he tossed one to her, she was again surprised, pleasantly, to see and feel her own staff that she’d brought from Jakku. She spun it around with pleasure, the heft and slap of it against her palms making her feel more secure than she’d felt in a while. 

After warmup exercises, they began to spar, moving around each other, cautiously reaching out to check the other’s defenses. 

“Open yourself to the Force,” Luke instructed her, doing the same himself. As she followed his instructions, she could feel him there in the Force and feel it responding to her, entering her and filling her up until she was no longer aware of where she ended and it began. Luke’s movements could be felt pushing and pulling and swirling around and she was able to move into counters easily, almost arriving at the point of defense before his strike was completed. 

A couple of rounds like this and Luke stepped up the pace. Faster and faster they went, spinning around each other in a complicated dance until Rey decided to take the offensive. This meant taking her predictions up a notch to try and anticipate Luke’s movements in order to get past his defenses and make a strike that would connect. She figured she would only get the one chance, but decided to go for a low sweep so it wouldn’t hurt if she miscalculated and struck too hard. 

The first three times she made the attempt, or made it look like she was attempting to make it, he jumped her strike and responded with a flurry of blows to drive her back and put her on the defensive. The fourth time, she went for the strike but at a higher point, aiming at the point where his knees had been so as to catch his ankles and coincide with his movements that she was predicting. Instead of meeting his ankles and sweeping his feet up to land him on his back, her staff swooshed through the air as Luke launched himself higher than before and twisted in the air to come down behind her, using the very same maneuver to sweep her feet and land her on her side as she attempted to twist and jump away from the reach of his staff at the last moment. 

He was grinning as he reached out a hand to her. “That was an impressive feint, Rey,” he said, waiting for her to take his offered help. Begrudging his offer, she refused at first, but when he just grinned at her more, she grinned back, took his hand and let him help her to her feet.

“You might want to brush yourself off,” Luke pointed at her backside, still grinning. Rey grimaced. She still wasn’t used to how grass would tear free and stick to her clothes, along with the dirt and sticks and other growing stuff from the ground. Some days she had to fight down a longing to return to the desert. It was just so much cleaner and simpler. With a deep sigh, she brushed herself off.

Luke patted her on the shoulder. He seemed more at ease out here, even though he still continued to scan the horizon regularly and his eyes had a hollow look to them that he tried to hide from her. Rey was reminded of the scavengers that had shown up at the junkyard who were running from the authorities in their systems or were being hunted for whatever reason.

Having the First Order and his own nephew after him had to be draining, she thought. Her admiration for him increased every time she considered this. She was sure that if she had the training and skill, the experience of battle that Luke did, as well as the backing of the Resistance, she would be hunting the First Order down to take back any family member they had taken from her.

Her gut tightened at the thought of family, followed by the fear that always gripped her heart at the thought of them returning to Jakku and not finding her there. She knew now, logically, that this wasn’t true. She knew that it had all been a lie, what she’d been told nearly every day of her life. Ever since she could remember, it had been emphasized to her that she needed to stay on the planet and wait for her family to return. Her marks had been a way to track the days, or so she’d thought, but now they seemed to have been only a way to distract her, keep her from questions that couldn’t be answered and time that was passing her by. Same thing with all the different skills she’d learned over the years spent waiting, though really she had no regrets for learning them, only the time gone while doing so.

Telling herself again that she was where she needed to be, was supposed to be, she picked up her staff and squared off again, facing Luke. He nodded approval and they began again, this time in a more friendly mood. They practiced until the sun disappeared completely behind the peaks of the island, moving from staffs to sabers to other forms of combat as well as other lessons on the Force and the galaxy around them, then she helped him set up the tents and start the fire for their evening meal.

Luke watched Rey from across the small fire, her face lit by its dying light. He could feel her turmoil as she contemplated the flames, her anger and hurt taking the lead but underneath there were other feelings as well. The admiration she felt when looking at him was something he’d come to recognize over the years as many others had looked at him the same way. He’d never grown used to it. It always felt like he was wearing someone else’s clothes. The anger and hurt he could understand and would have been surprised if there hadn’t been any. Worried too, but she seemed very aware of the betrayal someone had perpetrated against her by leaving her on Jakku yet making her hope for their return.

Her naivete was unexpected, coming from her situation. When she’d told him about where she’d come from and how she’d grown up, he’d been amazed she wasn’t more jaded or cynical, or broken. Still, she hadn’t been the one he’d expected to find him, to come to him for training. The one that had first awakened. Finn, she’d named him, and told him the story that Finn had told her, about having grown up in the First Order and then finding himself defying them on Jakku during his first real mission. 

Luke had felt a chill when Rey had passed on Finn’s description of Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma’s attention to his actions and how he’d been sent for reconditioning, yet still felt the desire, the need to free Poe Dameron and escape from the only life he’d ever known. 

Dread rose in the pit of his stomach when he thought of this and he had to forcibly turn his thoughts back to the Light, to Rey and Finn and the new beginning they represented. His own personal fight against the Darkness he had vowed to keep away from the rest of his family. Now he included these two new additions in that vow. They deserved to be free of that taint, especially since it would seem they would be facing their own darkness in the future. They’d survived one showdown already. It was up to him to make sure they were ready for the next one. At least that way, the Light would continue on with new champions, even if he wasn’t there.

Which was why he had brought Rey here. This first time, they wouldn’t be tackling the big mountain, the one he was fairly certain contained what he’d been searching for these past several years. This time was to test him and his student’s connection and ability to work together, to forge a bond between them that would make them both greater together than they could ever be by themselves. It would also allow them to talk about all the serious things they needed to get out into the open, but kept getting stuck on because their emotions and physical beings were in the way.

The night passed quietly before he finally asked her the one question he’d been wanting to since her arrival. “Why didn’t you wait and bring Finn with you?”

Rey looked startled, like she had forgotten he was there. She wiped her hands on her pants, acting nervous or as if he’d caught her doing something she wasn’t supposed to. After a few moments of considering his question, she answered. “Leia felt, General Leia, that is,” she stumbled over her words, the forced formality of Leia’s title getting in her way, “she felt that it was urgent for me to come to you and begin training as soon as I could. Besides,” she looked at him, questions in her serious brown eyes, “why would he need training?”

Luke restrained a smile at her innocent question, knowing she wouldn’t understand what he found amusing. He tapped into the Force instead and lifted a small burning stick from the fire, rotating it above the flames. “The Force can be like this fire, burning in all of us, some more than others.” He made the stick break in half, one end burning brightly, the other only having a small ember the end that had been closer to the flame. He gestured at the piece burning merrily.

“This is you, Rey. Now that you’ve found you can access the Force, when you do, your light is bright and strong.” He motioned to the other piece, its ember cooling and darker now, but still hot. “This is your friend, Finn. He awoke to the Force, to the Light, but doesn’t have the natural strong conduit like you do to channel it and access it.” He dropped the burning piece and brought the ember closer to him. 

“But I have found, through study and research, that just because someone isn’t a complete natural talent, doesn’t mean that they can’t be taught.” Yet another teaching he’d had to discard, he thought. He ignored the bitter taste on his tongue and continued with his explanation. He blew on the ember, causing it to brighten. “With training, with the desire to learn and grow,” he blew harder and the ember burst into flame, then began to crawl up the wood, catching more of it on fire, “someone with the ability can become a wielder of the Force just as strong as any natural.”

The piece dropped into the fire, becoming a part of it again. “I believe your friend Finn could be such a one.” He watched for Rey’s reaction to this. She cocked her head to one side, contemplating this idea. Her eyes widened.

“You would feed him the Force to open him to it!” She sounded shocked and curious all at once.

Luke nodded. She was just as quick as he had known she was, as she had shown herself to be. “Yes,” he said, “if he is will. And,” he held up a hand in concession, “only as much as he is willing. I wouldn’t compel anyone to do this. That would be,” he paused, distaste strong on his face, searching for the right phrase. 

Rey broke in. “That would be wrong! No better than the First Order forcing him to be a stormtrooper!” Her outrage was visible in the look she gave him.

“Exactly.” Luke held up both hands. “As I said, I would never compel him or anyone to take part in such an experiment. I’m not even sure how it would work, if at all. This is just something I’ve researched as a way to help those with a small affinity to gain more if they wanted.” When she eased back into a sitting position, he lowered his hands. He wondered if she knew that she’d been embracing the Force just then, ready to back up her outrage with real action. He gave her a few moments to compose herself before breaking in on her silence.

“Do you think he’d agree to this type of training?”

She met his gaze with one full of confusion. “I don’t know. I can see how it might be attractive, but he’s just broken free of being restricted by rules. He’s lived his life up until now with someone telling him what to do and how to act. If you ask him to join up to be a Jedi, he might disappoint you.”

Luke nodded in agreement. This was the same conclusion he had come to. “Agreed, which is why I wouldn’t ask him to become a Jedi.” He hesitated a moment, wanting her full attention before he continued. “Which is why I’m not asking you to become a Jedi either, at least not in the traditional sense.”

He waited while she processed his words, watching her work them over in her mind, waiting for the inevitable question. It came quickly, as expected. 

“So what are you training me to be then?” Her face was screwed up in an expression that Luke could only describe as reluctant thoughtfulness.

“To be a Force wielder, nothing more, nothing less.” He stated the words quietly, trying to keep emotion from tinging them. “I want your choice of what you do with my training to be your own.” 

He had reluctantly come to this conclusion after long hours of meditation on the issue of what to do with her when she had shown up on his island with his old lightsaber, asking for training. What he wanted her to be and what she expected to become were not likely to be the same thing. He was certain that what he desired to make of her conflicted with the stories and myths that she had heard and built her expectations on, even from Lor San Tekka. The Jedi had reached such mythical status in the passing years that they were now akin to gods in some cultures, demons in others. 

What he knew of them he’d learned on his own, started on the path by Obi Wan Kenobi and directed further by Yoda, but even their teachings had proven to be faulty, at least in some aspects of his experience. Now, starting over yet again, he had vowed, again, not to repeat their mistakes - or his own. So here he sat, his most promising student in a decade of searching and waiting seated in front of him, contemplating whether he was leading her down a false path. 

He tried to look trustworthy, if that was truly possible. He tried not to look desperate and must have succeeded, at least in part, as she nodded twice, like she was agreeing to some inner voice of her own and looked him in the eye.

“And if I choose to be a Jedi?” She waited for him to respond, her left eyebrow twitched upward, her face schooled to a blank, revealing nothing.

“Then I will teach you all I know about the Jedi Order and how to be one.” He suppressed his own emotions at her question.

“Everything, right?” She insisted “Not just what you think I should know, but everything you know as well, right?”

Luke considered all the years of solitude and hardship he had endured to find the knowledge he now had. “I promise to teach you everything about the Force that you are willing to learn,” he responded.

Rey narrowed her eyes and gazed at him, instinctively feeling that he had phrased it that way for a reason but unable to define why. After several moments of him meeting her gaze with equanimity, she could no longer contain herself. Her smile burst forth and she held out her hand to him. “And I agree to learn everything I can from what you teach me.”

Luke shook her hand, feeling less enthusiastic about the deal than his student, but still happy they’d come to this understanding.

“So when can we go see Finn?” She asked, eager now to share her newfound knowledge with her friend.

“After you show me how well you can climb this mountain,” Luke replied. He could feel her eagerness infecting him now as well.

Rey laughed. “I’ll beat you to the top, old man,” she teased, then crowed with laughter when he gave her a mock-insulted glare. He waved her off to her tent to get as much sleep as possible, then sat and stared at the dying fire for long after he should have retired himself, unable to shake the feeling of dread he felt when thinking of the future ahead of them.

Luke finally convinced himself to get some sleep and was headed to his tent when sounds from Rey’s tent halted him in his tracks. She was whimpering in her sleep, pain or terror causing her distress. Luke reached out with the Force, opening himself to scan the area, but no immediate danger was in range. Still, she made those noises for a reason. He focused more on her and found she was channeling the Force in her sleep, or at least was in touch with it, though he doubted it was a conscious choice.

His hesitation came to an end when she cried out, pain now evident in her voice. He entered her tent to find her writhing on her pallet, eyes shut in sleep, clutching her sides, arms wrapped around her torso, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Rey! Rey…” Luke knelt by her side, calling to her softly, not wanting to startle her or wake her too quickly. She didn’t respond and he reached out to nudge her with his hand. The moment he touched her, he could feel that she was linked to someone else in the Force. Someone familiar.

“No, no, no,” he murmured. Reaching out into the Force even more, he probed the link, following it back to its originating point. His nephew, as he had feared, was the point of origin. From what Luke could sense, the younger man was locked in a nightmare and Rey was feeling the backlash through the connection between them. Luke really wanted to know how that had come to be, but that was less important right now than ending the nightmare. He extended his essence through the Force and poked at his nephew.

“Ben!” He projected his voice at the young man, hoping to reach him, though his own connection was weak from long and deliberate neglect. His nephew sat up, abruptly awake. Satisfied at this result, Luke withdrew from the contact and checked on his young charge. 

Rey was still asleep, peacefully now. Luke sighed and settled himself on the floor of her tent, sitting cross-legged. If there were more nightmares to come, he wanted to be close by to deal with them. His hunch paid off when she stirred again after only a short while, crying out softly. He reached out and laid his hand on her arm, projecting comfort through the Force. 

A jolt of shock projected back at him, followed by Rey sitting up and shouting in pain and horror. “Oh, no! No! No! Don’t!” She writhed and held herself, shaking her head. “Stop! Please! Please stop!”

Luke reached out and grabbed her by both shoulders. “Rey! Snap out of it! Pull back!” He gave her a slight shake, projecting strength and comfort to her, trying to get her to wake up.

Rey’s eyes popped open, wide with fright and shared pain. “He’s hurting himself,” she cried out quietly, “and he won’t stop!” She shook her head again, tears still streaming from her eyes to run down her cheeks and join the ones soaking her shirt. “He’s doing that...that thing...oh please!” She flung herself at Luke, rapping his chin with her head even as she grabbed him around the waist and buried her face in his shirt. Luke found himself awkwardly patting her on the back and murmuring to her, not really sure what to do except hold her and let things work themselves out.

Eventually her sobs quieted and then stopped. She shifted herself and he thought she might pull back to lay in her bed again. Instead, she simply curled up in his lap, shrugging her shoulders until his arms settled around her. He cradled her like this for a while, both of them silent.

A deep sigh escaped Rey’s hidden lips and Luke felt her finally relax back into slumber. Her hold on the Force eased off until it was barely there. The fact that she seemed to be in touch with it almost constantly, whether she was aware of it or not, still amazed him. Carefully, he extended his own awareness in the Force, doing his best to block her from any outside influence. 

He sent a feeler through the Force toward his nephew, wanting to know what he’d been doing that had caused Rey so much anguish. He feared what he might find, knowing that it might set off his own anger. When he reached him, Luke felt his gut wrench at the impressions he received. The sense of darkness and sorrow tinged the aura of his nephew as he lay on his bed, not asleep, but in a trance, almost hypnotic in nature, induced by the use of pain and the Force. In this state, there was no feeling, no awareness, only an empty existence.

Luke had only felt that once before coming from a living being. He shuddered and withdrew himself back to his own body. 

Settling back into a slightly more comfortable position, he tightened his grip around Rey, reinforced the barrier that blocked her from contact through the Force as much as he could and drifted off into an uneasy sleep.


	8. Connection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren gains an aide and perhaps something more.

Early in the morning, long before he normally woke, Kylo Ren was jarred from his trance by the sound of someone entering his quarters with a trolley, bringing the smell of food that made his mouth water and his stomach turn, queasy from the lack of sleep. Lack of sleep was something he was used to, but here planet-side he had no idea who would be disturbing him at this time of day. Dragging the blood-soaked blanket around his shoulders in place of his normal cloak and cowl, he stood and made his way into the main room, a scowl deeply embedded on his scarred face.

A tall blond man with the bearing of a stormtrooper but dressed as an adjutant was setting up a meal on the desk, his movements crisp and efficient. His voice came back over his shoulder, just as crisp as his movements, the accent denoting a decided Core World influence. 

“Good morning, sir. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering a full breakfast for you today. If you have a preference or don’t like anything, just let me know and I’ll update your menu for tomorrow.”

“Who…” Kylo growled.

The man ceased fussing over the plates of food and turned to face him, coming to full attention without a salute. “JB-6007, assigned as your personal aide, starting today,” he stated. His eyes, pale blue in a face tanned by years in space, watched him with a fierce pride and adoration that Kylo found rather unnerving. 

Opening himself to the Force, he sifted through the general noise of people stirring and waking all over the training center and focused until this man’s thoughts were all that came through. As suspected, JB-6007 was filled with numerous emotions - shock, surprise, pleasure, guilt, and yes - adoration toward himself. Under the blanket, he dug his thumb into his side, bringing out a fresh wash of pain that helped him focus even more on what was causing these unusual emotions. 

The shock JB-6007 was feeling was from the suddenness of the orders assigning him to become Kylo Ren’s aide, the surprise and guilt seemed to stem from the same source but was muddled, like a view through quadnocs that hadn’t been focused properly. Kylo lifted his hand, focusing the flow of the Force even sharper into the soldier’s mind, causing him to gasp as he felt the sensation. To Kylo’s surprise, the man in front of him felt even more pleasure and adoration at this intrusion. The source for these emotions became apparent -  the man viewed him as more than human because of his abilities with the Force. Kylo grinned, inordinately pleased by this. He eased up the pressure, not wanting to harm his new aide.

“Why the guilt, JB-6007?” Kylo’s soft growl prompted a flurry of images to come to the forefront of his aide’s memory. The interrogation table from the back, someone secured to it and him, JB-6007, standing guard by the entrance to the room. A voice is heard, the words blurred by the memory but causing emotions to surface. Anger and fear rising up to cause him to go over to the table and check the restraints.

Kylo felt a sense of surreal shock as he recognized the girl - Rey - as the table’s occupant. JB-6007 checked the restraints, making sure she couldn’t escape, fear of her uppermost in his mind. Then her face changed, relaxed and her voice came again, soothing and erasing the fear, replacing it with comfort and peace. Before he could think or question, he unlatched her, freeing her from those terrible shackles, setting her free. Peace flooding him now, suffusing him with warmth and joy, he left the room. Her voice came one last time and he shed his burden of a gun and headed down the hall to somewhere else.

Guilt came crashing in along with Captain Phasma’s voice, castigating him for abandoning his post and not reporting in for his next shift. He’d been standing at a viewport near his quarters, apparently for hours, lost in the peace and comfort left by her voice. Guilt and pain and anxiety from Phasma’s tongue lashing and then the retraining and reconditioning over the last several months. Now, in the presence of another Force user, JB-6007 couldn’t help but hope to feel that peace he had felt before. Or in this case, the fact that his new commanding officer was using the Force to view his mind gave him such great pleasure he didn’t care about any pain or humiliation he had suffered or might in the future. 

Kylo released his hold on the aide’s mind. He let the Force slip from his grasp and blocked his mind back into quiet as it usually was. The food on the desk tickled his nose with its scent and he found himself hungry, a novel sensation this early in the morning. Easing himself into the only chair, he waved at JB-6007, who took this to mean he was to continue his duties. Kylo found himself to be in good hands as plate after plate was offered to him. His stomach was soon filled fuller than it had been in a long time.

He stood with a groan and bumped his scar, causing an involuntary hiss to escape his lips with the sudden sharp burst of pain. JB-6007 was at his side instantly, holding his arm and asking him if there was anything he needed before he could even stop him. His snarl didn’t change the expression of concern on his aide’s face, nor stop him from lifting the blanket away from his abused skin. The curse that came from his aide was not one that Kylo was familiar with, unusual considering how many he’d heard in his lifetime.

Kylo tried to shrug him away, waving his hands and protesting, but his aide proved to be fearless in his concern and devotion. He grabbed Kylo by the wrists.

“Please, sir. Allow me to tend to your wounds.” His pale blue eyes met Kylo’s dark ones and inside, Kylo felt a part of himself fill up that he hadn’t even known existed, let alone known it was empty. He scowled but stopped protesting and sat back in the chair, wondering what his aide intended to do. His curiosity was soon satisfied by the arrival of a medical droid delivering a full med-kit, complete with bacta strips and treatments of all kinds. The droid was dismissed, surprising Kylo yet again.

JB-6007 approached him and knelt by his side. He prepared an antiseptic solution and waved it at Kylo. “Please raise your arm, sir.” The clipped accent was softer now. Kylo did as asked, watching his aide the whole time. There was no pity or annoyance in his eyes as he dabbed and wiped the jagged cuts and scratches, only concern and empathy, especially when any of the swipes caused Kylo to wince or gasp. His face took on a particularly resolute cast when it came to cleaning the scar on his side. He moved over that way to be closer, taking even softer, smaller wipes at the blood and skin dried and crusted there.

Kylo was completely fascinated. He’d never received this kind of attention before in his entire life, that he could recall. This complete and utter focus on him, not for the sake of anything more or less than his well-being bordered on a devotion that was almost worshipful. Kylo basked in it, feeling as though he was the only person in existence at this moment besides his aide. There was no question now of the man’s loyalty. He may have been raised, trained and inculcated as a stormtrooper for the First Order, but Kylo knew without a doubt that this man was now his.

“I’m going to need to give you a name.” He stated this as a matter of fact, then waited for the expected reaction. JB-6007, instead of protesting, bowed his head.

“I would be honored with whatever name you see fit to give me, sir.”

Kylo laid his hand on his aide’s head and thought about all the names he’d ever heard in his life. He could feel the man trembling under his palm. It excited him, this powerful emotion felt toward him. He felt giddy as he leaned down to whisper in his aide’s ear.

“The name I give you is Jobe.”

Jobe leaned into his hand and Kylo was certain he felt a tear drop onto his leg. The pride and joy was coming off his aide now in waves and he had to restrain himself from doing anything but sitting there and basking in it. They remained like that for a while, until Jobe shifted and looked up at him.

“Thank you, sir,” he murmured. Rising to his feet, he took the bloody blanket he had removed from Kylo and disappeared into the bedroom with it. Kylo, clad only in his briefs after Jobe’s ministrations to his wounds, found himself polishing off the remaining breakfast food and enjoying it. He pulled up his day’s itinerary on the desk datapad, wondering what tasks they had him scheduled for today. More testing. He sighed and touched the link in the Force that connected him to Rey.

She flinched from him. She flinched and he felt it like a punch in the gut. His first instinctive reaction had him on his feet, hand out as his lightsaber flew to it. Its ignition brought him back to full awareness, an orange glow shining in his eyes.

Anger burst in his chest, spilling bile up his throat to burn the back of his tongue. Was she rejecting him again? After accepting his previous tentative reaches through the link, she would give him a reaction like this? He blocked the link, vowing to not reach out to her again.

Deactivating the lightsaber, he scowled at it in disgust. This had been his padawan lightsaber and the fact it was all he had at the moment was more fuel to his ire. His request for another red Kyber crystal had been submitted months ago, yet was still unfulfilled. Cursing Hux and his incompetent officers, Kylo threw the saber back to the couch where it had been left before.

“Is everything alright, sir?” Jobe’s voice came from behind him, causing him to spin around in momentary startlement. He’d forgotten about his aide in the distraction of her rejection and this irked him even more.

“No, but there’s nothing to be done about it,” he growled. He’d meant to say yes and brush it aside, but his tongue betrayed him. Not the first time this had happened and his anger rose another notch. He felt like a pot of boiling water, looking for a vent to burst.

Jobe nodded. “We should go work off some of that steam.” His quick smile flashed across his face, almost hiding the concern in his eyes. He held out a pile of clean clothes to Kylo. 

Scowling, Kylo snatched the clothes and stalked past him to the bedroom. Working out was not the first thing he thought of doing when he was angry, unless that workout involved destroying something. Even then, that usually happened before he actually thought about it, making him more angry at his loss of control.

Guilt hit him as he saw Jobe’s face go blank, carefully schooled to a neutral expression. It wasn’t his aide’s fault she was rejecting him and here he was being an ass to him when he was trying to help. Growling in self-loathing and disgust, Kylo used the Force to slam the door shut behind him.

He dressed carefully, the skin on his torso still tender and aching despite Jobe’s treatments. Realization hit him as he avoided yet again reaching out to that link leading to Rey that she’d probably felt him doing this last night and that was why she was rejecting him now, today. With a groan at his own disgusting self, he slammed both fists into the wall, the pain and shock shrieking up his arms to his head, joining the malaise already swirling there.

The door creaked open behind him, sounding worse than it had before. He grinned maliciously. It was most likely broken and would need replacing. Jobe’s voice came to him, calm and steady.

“Sir, it’s time for your testing. They’ve sent an inquiry as to what time you’ll arrive.”

Kylo spat a curse over his shoulder, implying the testing personnel go get well and thoroughly abused by marauding Rancors. Jobe chuckled and Kylo raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’ll let them know you’ll be arriving ‘soon’, yes?” He didn’t wait for Kylo’s response but turned back into the main room, leaving the door open. Kylo found it both perplexing and refreshing for someone to not be afraid of him, and not because of their own position or perceived authority, but because of how they thought of him. In Jobe’s case, he held Kylo in high regard, to the point of reverence but without fear of blaspheme or insult by treating him causally.

Not sure how to react, Kylo decided to let him continue on, enjoying the interaction while he could and while it lasted. From bitter experience, he didn’t expect it to last very long. A fresh blast of guilt washed over him and he reached out into the Force to see if Snoke was there. The absence of his mentor was conspicuous, worrisome even, especially as he’d promised to finish his training. That too was almost expected, as promises made were rarely kept if the benefit of keeping them lessened.

The walls around him were suddenly too close, too confining. He strode into the main room.

“Jobe, do you know how to pilot an Upsilon shuttle?” Not waiting for a reply, Kylo grabbed his mask and lightsaber from the couch and table next to and turned toward the door. He was opening it as Jobe grabbed a datapad from the desk on his way out, following close behind.

“Yes, sir! Actually I can pilot just about anything the First Order has available, sir.” He met Kylo’s mischievous grin with one of his own as they headed out into the hall. Kylo settled his mask carefully on his head, ignoring the pressure on his scar and resisting the urge that brought to reach out on that link. If she didn’t want his presence, he didn’t want hers. Besides, piloting required focus and it was one thing he’d always been better than anyone at.

Kylo’s command codes got them clearance for takeoff, the shuttle being prioritized as soon as traffic could be cleared out of his way. Jobe turned out to not only be as good as he had said for piloting, but also when it came to dealing with the petty officers in getting things cleared for the flight. Their ascent through the atmosphere went smoothly, Jobe being just as efficient with his movements as ever. Kylo was relieved to finally have someone competent as a co-pilot.

He removed his mask as they reached the limits of the planet’s stratosphere and went beyond, shaking out his hair and setting the mask on the chair behind him. Jobe continued to monitor their flight as they moved further away from the planet and out into the system. With the planet and the system’s sun behind them, the cabin of the Upsilon shuttle was lit only by the lights from the dashboard, allowing the darkness of space to fill the windows. Only a few stars were visible in this section of space, being in the Outer Rim. Kylo breathed deeply, feeling tension drain from him. 

A light from the comm began to blink and Kylo felt his shoulders tense up again. Jobe looked over at him, then settled a headset over his short blond hair as Kylo let loose a curse. Kylo scowled and rose from his seat, stomping out of the control cabin and back into the main troop area. He could hear Jobe speaking to someone, telling them there was no registered destination. A moment of silence passed and then Jobe mentioned Captain Phasma, requesting to speak to her.

Kylo grimaced. He still hadn’t decided if he was going to go through with that dinner invitation. He took the remaining few steps toward the back of the main hold, past the four seats bolted to the floor for officers and thumbed the door lock leading to his private section. It wasn’t very big, just enough room for a large chair secured to the floor, a desk against the back wall and some cabinets. Pulling one of the doors open, he reached in and drew out a spherical training droid.

He returned to the main hold and activated the droid, then shook out a bandana and tied it over his eyes. Opening himself to the Force, he quickly located the droid and waited for it to fire. As it did, he called his lightsaber to his hand, ignited it and blocked the shot, deflecting it to the wall. The simplest of exercises, it still was comforting to be able to successfully block all the shots fired by the droid. Three more shots blocked and the droid beeped, indicating the next level. Kylo moved to draw the droid’s fire. The bolt sizzled off his saber’s blade. He grinned and moved again. The droid whirled and fired again. A second bolt deflected. 

The door to the cabin opened and the droid fired, right at Jobe’s head!

“No!” Kylo shouted and reached out, grabbing the bolt with the Force, fear shooting through his chest. The bolt halted inches from his aide’s eyes, wide with shock. Pulling the scarf from his eyes, Kylo deactivated the saber and looked at Jobe.

“You need to be more careful!”

Jobe nodded and ducked under the frozen bolt, moving into the main hold. “I’m sorry.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when the droid fired again.

“Dammit, Jobe, hold still!” Kylo’s outflung hand was pointed at the second bolt, halting it in front of his aide. Jobe froze this time, his mouth and eyes now round in true fright. Kylo laughed nervously.

“Let me turn it off,” he murmured softly, moving slowly toward the droid. Its lights blinked a moment before it whirled and fired at Kylo’s head. In a blur of speed, Kylo blocked the bolt with his reignited saber and dashed in to hit the button on top of the droid, deactivating it. It dropped to the floor, bounced once and rolled half a meter away.

Jobe let out a nervous chuckle. Kylo beckoned him over and he ducked around the bolt still humming in front of him. He stopped next to Kylo, shaking his head. “That would have been a nasty sting,” he said, his voice shaking.

The training droid rose from the floor, startling Jobe, who stepped back. Its still deactivated form floated into Kylo’s outstretched hand and he turned it to show Jobe the setting, a feral grin lighting up his face.

“Oh,” was the only word that came from Jobe as he blanched and staggered back a couple of steps, then turned to find the nearest chair and collapse in it.

Kylo motioned toward the cabin and the door slid shut. A sigh came from him and the bolts were released, to smash into the door and the adjoining wall, burning the surfaces with their intensity. Walking past Jobe, Kylo paused a moment, then reached out and awkwardly gripped his shoulder with a long squeeze. He waited until Jobe looked him in the eye, then nodded and went into his cabin, the door locking behind him.


	9. Climb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Luke come to terms with the Force bond between her and Kylo Ren. They begin climbing the smaller cliff on the island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have never climbed a cliff before, but I've tried to be as realistic and correct in my terms and descriptions as possible. Source material for my inspiration is the description of climbing Lotus Flower Tower in the Cirque of the Unclimbables - [Bombing in the Cirque of the Unclimbables](http://www.summitpost.org/bombing-in-the-cirque-of-the-unclimbables/354428). If any mistakes are made, it's all on me.

Rey stirred and found herself stiff from being held for the couple of hours she’d been able to sleep. It was slightly awkward, waking up to Master Luke holding her like a child. Better than the alternative, she thought. This link to Kylo Ren through the Force didn’t seem like such a great thing anymore.

Her stirring woke Luke and they suffered through awkward moments as she rolled out of his lap and he stretched and she stretched and both tried to act like this was normal when it was anything but. She started laughing, to which he was caught out, mouth open in wonderment as she shook with trying to hold it in until it broke free. Then he shook his head and chuckled along with her until she started coughing. He gave her several firm pats on the back and she managed to stop.

She smiled and took his hand in her two, squeezing it gently. “Thank you,” she began earnestly, “for helping me last night. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here.”

Luke looked embarrassed and upset, but she wasn’t sure if it was because she was thanking him or because of what had happened. She wasn’t even completely sure of everything that happened, caught up in sleep as she had been, and didn’t know how to ask for more details. When he didn’t respond right away, she felt her own cheeks reddening. She dropped his hand and turned away, clambering to her feet and clearing her suddenly clogged throat.

“Well,” she mumbled, “guess I’ll start packing things up for the climb.” She started out the tent door, ducking her head to clear its low top.

“How long have you and he been linked?” Luke’s voice came from behind her, low and shaky. She knew he was upset, but this sounded more like an angry accusation than anything else. Before she could think, before her head could stop pounding from the crying and the pain and the lack of sleep, he was going to ask her that? She’d expected him to at least ask how she was doing, was feeling, before taking her to task for something she’d not asked for and had no control over. It wasn’t even her fault. She rounded on him.

“What! How dare you blame me for this? This isn’t my fault! This is all Kylo Ren’s doing! Do you think I asked for this?” She was screaming now, waving her hands at him, finding it hard to breath in the tent. Stomping her feet and expelling one last breath, she turned and stomped out into the too bright, too humid morning. Finding her canteen, she turned it up to slake her thirst only to find it empty. That was just too much. She screamed out at the sky. “Arrgh!”

She was standing by the dead fire, empty canteen in hand, fuming and radiating red waves of anger and hurt when Luke came out of the tent. He clenched his hands into fists, then forced them to relax, his cybernetic one feeling just as real to him as his own flesh after all this time. He felt that his own inner turmoil was reflected by Rey’s temper. Guilt flashed through him as he wondered if he’d provoked her on purpose. Other thoughts flashed through his head, ones that he wasn’t ready to acknowledge yet. He could feel his own Darkness swelling in response to her anger. Again, that was not something he was ready to deal with. Not today. He drew the Light to him, opening himself to its peacefulness, reaching out to call to the Light in Rey before approaching her.

“I’m sorry, Rey,” he said as he walked towards her, hands at his sides. “Forgive me? I’ve been away from company for too long.” He stopped within arm’s reach of her. “I wasn’t blaming you for anything.” He waited.

Rey stood there, her back to him, holding her empty canteen and wondering if her senses were deceiving her. Master Luke was behind her, speaking words that asked her to forgive him, while the feeling that burned in his center was anything but peace and forgiveness. She extended herself into the Force and could feel him pulling the Light to himself, trying to maintain his peaceful facade, but that’s all it was, a facade. His core was spewing hate and anger into him like a black hole spitting radiation, eating the light of all the surrounding stars.

She could appreciate what he was trying to do, what he had been trying to do since she’d shown up here and probably since before then. He was the last of his kind, the last of the Jedi, and so he was trying his hardest to keep true to the teachings he’d learned. Those tenets were things he’d had to learn on his own, she’d found out, and now here he was, a student forced upon him when he tried to leave all this behind because he hadn’t wanted to lie any more about being peaceful, about showing only compassion, about not allowing his anger his show.

She’d grown up living a lie and once she’d found out, she was no longer interested in keeping up that lie. So now why would she, should she, force him to lie, to keep lying? This had to end. She turned to her Master, the man who was supposed to be her teacher.

“Stop this, Luke.” She dropped the honorific, wanting him to take her seriously. The look on his face went from placating to wary in a split second, showing her that he was indeed drawing on the Force and could feel her intent. “Stop treating me like a child!” Rey said it, knowing she’d been acting like a child just a few moments ago, when she’d yelled at him. She was trying to provoke him though.

“Isn’t that what you wanted, Rey?” his question came in a voice low and dangerous. “Didn’t you just get mad a moment ago because I wasn’t treating you like a child, like you needed to be handled carefully?” His hands were clenched now, she could see. “I asked you a simple question out of concern because I had to hold you, like a child, all night while you were being torn up from the inside and you act like I’d accused you of murder! So I ask you now, isn’t that what you want?” His scowl was fierce and Rey felt herself quell as he was filled even more with the Force, more than she’d ever seen him take in before, but she drew a breath braced herself before continuing. 

“You said you would tell me everything!” She tossed the words at him with measured force, choosing them with care. “Doesn’t that include when I’m acting like a child? You are, after all, the Master here, right?” She saw him flinch at that and had to swallow hard to keep herself steady and refrain from throwing her arms around him in apology. His scowl hardened and she braced herself for what would come next.

Luke couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Here he was, trying to stay calm, offering words of peace, and she was coming back at him like she wanted him to get mad and yell back at her. He could feel his nails on his one hand biting into the flesh of his palm and knew he’d have fresh pits in the palm of his metal one. Funny how inane things like that always came to mind when he was angry like this. Little things like the hair on her head blowing in wispy strands across her eyes, the smell of the ocean and the burnt wood in the fire pit, among a multitude of other minutiae. His anger was crisp and clear, red and black in his center and her stare pinning him down there.

“You are correct, Rey. I said I would tell you everything about the Force. So you can understand how shocked I was to discover last night that you have a bond with Kylo Ren, strong enough that you feel his dreams and even his self-abuse. Because I forgot to have you promise to tell me everything in return. I suppose I thought that was implied, but I guess I was wrong.” 

He paused when she flinched at this and had to hold back to keep from grabbing her and pulling her close in apology. “So to tell you that I had to hold you last night while you cried and I could do nothing because I had no warning means I have to tell you how angry I am at Kylo Ren right now. How I would gladly do things to him that make me ashamed to even think about because you failed to tell me about this link, this bond. Did you think it was just a harmless little thing? Maybe you found it romantic? Do you think you have feelings for him now?” Luke saw the look on her face at that and knew she had thought about it, maybe a little, but nothing more than idle musings, based on the confusion in her eyes. His heart ached to know she was still so young and innocent about that. 

He scowled more to keep from crying out. “I asked you about the link because I wanted to prepare to help you. So now, you and I will spend time going over that instead of what I had planned. We were going to work on our own bond, as master and student, by climbing that cliff. Now, that no longer matters.” His voice was thick with despair.

Rey could feel sorrow drowning his anger, quenching its fire with a burden of guilt. She stepped forward and threw her arms around him, much as she’d done last night.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep it from you,” she cried into his shoulder. She felt him stiffen for a fraction of a second then relax and wrap his arms around her, patting her shoulders and stroking her hair. He didn’t say anything but she could feel his relief and a sense of peace begin to grow within him. The Darkness was still there, but it seemed like he was acknowledging it now, accepting that it was part of him. She knew from her own experience that bringing something out into the light made it easier to work with it and showed what its true worth was. If it worked for scavenging, it might work with feelings.

Luke stepped back from the embrace first, placing his hands on Rey’s shoulders as he did. He noticed how she was nearly as tall as him, though still extremely thin from years of undernourished living. He also noticed that despite how angry she had made him, it hadn’t been a true anger, like what burned in him normally, but came from fear and concern, like he hadn’t thought he could ever feel for anyone but his sister. 

The Darkness buried inside him was still there, though not as riled up as it had been earlier. He was able to think of why it was there with a more rational viewpoint now that he’d acknowledged his anger toward his nephew as far as this intrusion into Rey’s life. Perhaps this would lead him to be able to eventually address the other reasons for his anger. 

“Thank you, Rey,” he murmured, giving her shoulders a squeeze. Her blush at his gratitude was something that warmed him in a way he hadn’t  thought possible and he wondered if this was what it felt like to have a daughter, a child. He reminded himself that technically Jedi didn’t have children. This made him wonder why and how that came to be. Pushing these thoughts aside, much as he had a lot of the other Jedi tenets over the years, he focused on the issue at hand.

“So, let’s have some food and talk about what you can do in regards to this bond that has happened between you and…” Luke’s careful, neutral tone stuttered to a halt. He wanted to call his nephew by the name given to him at birth, but he wasn’t really that person any more, not after what he’d done, all that he’d done. To call him by the name Rey had mentioned was more appropriate but felt like a betrayal to Leia and Han. Rey came to his rescue.

“Kylo Ren. That’s what he has named himself. That’s what we should call him.” She took a deep breath. “Just because it’s not what he was named at birth, doesn’t mean we can disrespect his choice. He’s not the boy you knew, Master Luke.”

“No, Rey, he’s not.” Luke nodded in agreement. “Very well then. Let me show you how to block Kylo Ren from your feelings and vice versus.” 

Rey nodded eagerly and they proceeded to eat and practice the techniques that Luke showed her over the next couple of hours until he was sure she had a firm grasp on them. He’d known she was a quick study, and this proved it. She had everything down after three tries, but he didn’t let her know that. He would rather be certain she was able to use what she knew in all circumstances than just a few instances.

He nearly jumped in shock early on when he was in the middle of explaining the concept of raising an internal barrier to block feelings from leaking out and she flinched, once, then twice, grimacing as she did. He stopped midsentence to ask her “What’s wrong?”

Rey gave him half a smile. “Oh, nothing,” she shrugged when she said it, trying to make light of it. Then seeing his frown of disbelief, she tried to laugh, failing miserably. “Um, well,” she looked down at her hands, turning them over to examine her palms before continuing, “he just tried to reach out to me...like the other day.” She shook her head, baffled. “Like nothing happened last night. He...he seemed surprised when I pushed him away, then blocked him.” She grinned at him, eagerly now. “Just like you were saying, Master Luke.”

Luke had to tell himself not to let his jaw drop in surprise, yet again. He did smile and nod in admiration. She’d performed what he’d been describing on the first try, with no actual guidance from him, other than his words. If he wasn’t so proud of her, he’d almost be jealous of how easy it was for her. He remembered how hard he’d had to practice to get in touch with the Force when he’d first started along the path to be a Jedi. Of course he didn’t have any teacher for any real length of time to show him most of what he knew now.

After that instance, he made her practice only to satisfy his sense of practicality, though he was sure she knew the theory well enough. It was still morning when he suggested they end their mental studies and do some physical practice. This time, he pulled out their two lightsabers. The dread on her face made him laugh a bit and tease her.

“So you still need a teacher in some areas, hmm?”

Her answering frown, accompanied by a paling of her complexion had him curious, but he only raised an eyebrow at her, allowing her to enlighten him only if she wanted to. This time she did.

“Kylo Ren said that, or almost that to me when we fought on Starkiller Base. He,” here she had to stop and swallow down emotion that suddenly threatened to choke her, “he said, no...offered to show me the ways of the Force.” She fell silent, hearing his voice again in her head.

Luke puzzled over this for several minutes. Especially how the words she repeated sparked a strange feeling deep inside him. He tucked it away mentally to be examined in later meditation. “Well, that is interesting,” he said, handing her the blue saber, his old one that had belonged to his father, according to Obi-Wan. “And he was correct.” He smiled and ignited his own green blade, taking up first position.

“Follow my lead.”

Rey followed him through three rounds of positions, feeling more comfortable now with the saber than ever before. Luke’s quiet encouragement and reminders to stay in touch with the Force to help her in her motions really helped. 

Finally they stopped for lunch, the sun at its zenith and the day pleasant and warm. Rey felt fidgety, like a pressure was building up inside her, though why or how she couldn’t say. Eating just enough to satisfy her hunger, which for once wasn’t huge, she headed off to the cliff’s approach, wanting to get a closer look.

The foot of the cliff was almost bare of plant life due to the lack of sun it received most of the year. Currently there were some small, hardy plants growing in cracks amongst the scree of broken rock and loose soil. She could see a few ways that would be good to start and began planning routes up each way from there. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by the jingle of small metal bits behind her. Turning to see what Luke was up to, she found him standing there, the climbing harnesses in his arms.

“Ready to get started? “ he asked, grinning at her confusion. She’d been certain he would have them wait until the next day to start the climb. Gratitude and excitement suffused her from the inside out.

“Yes!” she practically shouted, grabbing a set of harness straps from him. Her eagerness was energizing but she’d never used real climbing gear before, so it took longer than she expected or wanted before they were geared up and ready to begin.

“Why are you fretting, Rey?” Luke’s voice, calming and steady, nevertheless grated on her jangled nerves.

“We need to get started before we lose the light,” she stated, her tone terse. She knew there wasn’t the type of scavengers and dangerous creatures here like on Jakku, but still the night gave her no peace. Climbing in the dark was no easy prospect either. Luke silently handed her a helmet with a large light attached to it. Dangling from his hand was two more straps with lights on them as well. She looked at him and saw he had his straps on his forearms so the lights would point to wherever he wanted his hands to go.

“Remember to breath, Rey.” His calm admonishment came from behind her as she started up the short slope to the first ascent, her helmet buckled to her belt for now.

Their progress was slow as first, because of her lack of experience with actual climbing equipment. Her fretting only made Luke ask her to double and triple check each point of contact she made until she felt ready to explode. They reached the first resting point at a ledge that jutted out a couple of meters from the headwall after nearly three hours of slow, careful climbing.

When she was almost level with the ledge, instead of securing her line, she shoved her left hand into a crack and made a fist, then used that as a pivot to swing from and caught a narrow ledge with her left foot and another crack with her right hand. Releasing her left fist, she pulled it from that crack and placed it into the same crack as her right hand, shifting her weight onto her right foot resting in the same crack, but lower down. Repeating the same series of movements again, she shifted herself over again and was able to step onto the larger ledge they’d been headed for. Securing a line to the wall behind her, she turned to look out over the meadow and take in the scene below.

Adrenaline and exhilaration from her risky maneuvering sent her blood coursing through her veins like it was on fire. She could feel her heart pounding as it hadn’t in several months. The view, even though they were only a third of the way up the side of the cliff was still thrilling enough to make her giggle and shiver in delight.

Her giddiness and excitement lasted until Luke reached the ledge and secured his line to the wall. He reached over and checked her line for a secure connection the wall, then turned to her. He met her excited grin with a fierce scowl.

“What in the nine hells of Malachor did you think you were doing, jumping over here like that?” His voice wasn’t quite a shout, but his tone said he was kriffed as all get out. She opened her mouth to reply, to apologize for surprising him, as she had forgotten that he’d never seen her climb free-style and so hadn’t been expecting her to be capable of doing something like that. Before she could get a word out, he continued his tirade.

“I know you said you can climb. I can see that you know how to climb, but that’s no reason for you to go pulling a vape-headed, sculag move like that! I ought to make you climb back down and take you back home!” Luke stopped yelling, clenched and unclenched his hands a couple of times, then turned away from her and leaned his forehead against the rock wall, holding himself steady by bracing his fists on the wall.

Rey took a step forward, hand raised to touch his shoulder. She wasn’t sure what to say, as sorry sounded too lame and inadequate. Suddenly, Luke punched the wall with his right hand, the metal joints squeaking with the force of the blows, once and then twice more. Startled, gasping with shock at his unexpected violence, she realized a couple of things. The first was that he wasn’t angry with her. He was mad, but only because he was scared. She’d scared him, to the point of him reacting like this after he was sure she was safe. The second thing hit her even harder. She was no longer no one. No longer just a scavenger. She mattered to more than just Finn. This had been something she’d felt before, when Finn came for her on Starkiller Base, but this drove it home. People would miss her if she was gone. Luke would miss her. She felt weak in the knees.

Turning to face the view, though it made her a bit dizzy now, she sank to a sitting position and leaned against the wall, bracing herself, hands on her knees, breathing deeply. They remained that way for several long moments before she heard him turning, his boots coming into view as he came over to her.

“Rey,” her name came out soft and gruff and she couldn’t hold back any longer. Springing to her feet, she stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around his chest, squeezing him hard, her face buried in the cloth at his shoulder. He smelled good, fresh and sharp, like ozone after a lightning storm. A sigh escaped him like a soft groan and he wrapped his arms around her, laying his cheek on the top of her head.

Luke couldn’t believe how angry he’d been. Her maneuver had been brilliant, risky and brash, and scared him nearly to death. He’d cursed at her, something he’d never done to any of his students before, not even Ben and his brother. He’d had to turn away and calm himself, even then he was only able to do so after punching the wall to relieve his tension. That had been most telling to him. He knew now he was treading a delicate path with her. Best to apologize and move on with the climb, he told himself. Then she grabbed him, hugged him, and he was lost.


	10. Distractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn tells Poe something unusual is happening. Poe doesn't take it very well. A new player in the game is revealed.

Finn watched Leia exit the dining room, the crate of datapads cradled in her arms. His heart was pounding still in response to what he’d felt when she’d been speaking, both to him and to the aide. He felt alive, more now than ever before. It was a feeling that had started back when he’d felt the need to stop and look around in that village on Jakku. Now it filled him, connecting him to everything and everyone around him. 

He could feel Poe next to him, the people in the next room, others in the halls around them, and like a beacon shining out in the darkness, Leia in her quarters. Some were brighter than others, Poe was brightest next to Leia but she outshown everyone, beckoning to him.

“Hey, Finn, wake up! We need to report for our shift in ten minutes.” Poe’s voice broke in on his contemplation of this amazing vision, making Finn realize his eyes had closed as he’d sought to explore this feeling more. He opened them and let go of the vision. The lines of connections faded but the remained running under the surface like currents between everything.

“Did you feel that?” he asked Poe, grabbing his arm. Poe grinned at him in return.

“No, but I saw how it affected you. What was that? Did General Leia use the Force on you?” Poe’s eagerness made his voice rise in pitch.

Finn stared back in amazement. That hadn’t occurred to him until now, but it came to him clearly that indeed, she had. He nodded and Poe shuddered, then grinned in excitement.

“I remember how it felt when that bastard used it on me,” he said. It took Finn a moment to realize he was speaking of when he’d been captured by Kylo Ren.

“This wasn’t painful,” he mused. Poe nodded, still grinning. “No, Leia is not a user of the Dark Side. She’s definitely of the Light.”

“Is she a Jedi?” Finn asked, suddenly unsure if she could be fully trusted. He’d grown up hearing stories of how the Jedi had pretended to be good but had ultimately betrayed the Empire, causing the Rebellion to come about.

“No,” Poe replied, giving him a look of patient annoyance, “but her brother is Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi. You know, the one that defeated the Emperor and Darth Vader on the second Death Star and helped end the Empire. That’s where your friend Rey went for training, remember?” Poe seemed impatient to get going now. He tugged on Finn’s arm, reminding him that they needed to report in for their shifts soon. Finn stood up and followed him out of the dining area, skirting absentmindedly around the droid headed to their table to retrieve the dishes they’d left there.

He trailed after Poe, still feeling overwhelmed by the shift in his view of everything around him. People passed them, nodding and smiling in response to Poe’s usually enthusiastic greetings. Everything seemed to have an echo to it, reminding him of when he had done underwater training maneuvers.

Their shift was ship maintenance this time around. Going over the machinery that was used to keep the remaining X-Wings up and running distracted him enough that he lost track of the time and that feeling of connectedness he’d experienced earlier. Still, Poe had to call his name a couple of times to get his attention when he was trying to get it back during their break. He found that he hadn’t moved for several minutes.

“Are you alright?” Poe’s face came into his field of vision and Finn realized he’d drifted off again while waiting on a calibration report from a droid. He’d started thinking about how he’d heard screams just seconds before the Hosnian System had been destroyed while they were on Takodana and wondering if that had been transmitted to him through the Force. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and smiled at the man he considered to be the most important person in his world. “Yeah, just…” he started to answer.

“Distracted? You’ve been like this all day. Anything you want to talk about?” Poe looked genuinely concerned.

Finn looked around, perturbed by the question, then caught Poe’s gaze with his own and nodded, looking miserable. “Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it here.” He knew in his head that he should be safe talking about anything out here, in the open, but emotionally he was still not willing to air anything personal, anything controversial or unusual, out where anyone could overhear him. Too many years of keeping everything locked away, he supposed.

Fortunately, Poe seemed to understand how he was feeling. “It’s alright, buddy!” he clapped his hand on Finn’s shoulder and gave him a squeeze. “We can talk in our quarters. Unless,” he looked again in Finn’s eyes, worry in his gaze now, “it’s a medical issue? Is it your back? Your head?”

Poe’s hands on his back and forehead made Finn feel all warm and fuzzy inside. This level of concern was still so new and almost overwhelming, yet made him want to do nothing more than pull Poe close and just hold him for hours. Poe seemed to enjoy it when he did that, but right now that wasn’t what Finn really wanted.

He pulled away, slightly annoyed, which must have shown on his face, causing Poe to look hurt. “What?” he asked.

Finn bowed his head and raised his hands. “I’m sorry, Poe. I just need some time to think about what’s going on. It’s not medical, so no need to worry about that. I’m fine, just…”

“I know. Distracted.” Poe hooked his thumbs in his belt, nodded and started walking towards the door leading to the hallways from the hanger bay. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Finn gave his friend’s back a fond grin. That was also one of the things he really liked about Poe. He rolled with the waves of life, never showing any sign that he was bothered by outside forces. This equanimity made Finn feel secure in this turbulent new life he’d awakened into.

They walked with silence between them back to their quarters. Not that Poe was silent, as he greeted and talked to nearly everyone they passed on their way. He just didn’t draw Finn into every conversation like he usually did. Finn was grateful, as this gave him a chance to examine his new discovery even more. That initial connectedness he had felt still hadn’t come back and couldn’t figure out how to get it back. 

Still, he found that everything seemed crisper, clearer, more defined. Sights and sounds and smells registered so strongly that his senses were overwhelmed, giving him a slight vertigo and making his stomach turn. He declined the dinner that Poe handed him when they stopped at their normal kiosk close by their quarters. Poe gave him a strange look and rolled his eyes. Finn gave his shoulder a squeeze, trying to apologize. The smile Poe gave him in return didn’t erase the odd look in his eyes completely. Finn tried apologizing again, out loud this time.  

“Sorry, Poe. I’ll eat later. It’s just I’m…”

“Distracted, I get that.” Poe’s interruption was unexpected, his tone impatient. He shrugged. “Hey, not my fault if there’s none left for you when you decide to eat again.”

Normally, this would have amused Finn, perhaps even goaded him into grabbing something to eat now. Instead it sounded petulant and a bit snarky. He felt a retort jump to the tip of his tongue and had to hold it back, not wanting to lash out when Poe was just not understanding things clearly.

When they reached their quarters, Finn breathed a sigh of relief. He enjoyed being here on the baser but recently, with everything in a state of upheaval as they worked on getting things packed away in preparation for the upcoming move it all was way too chaotic and wild. Not that he missed the sterile quiet and enforced order of the First Order’s training barracks, he simply found things here so...undisciplined.

 

Poe hadn’t said anything to Finn the entire walk to their quarters. Not because there wasn’t anything to say, but because so much came to mind when he started to open his mouth that he shut it again, overwhelmed for the first time in his life by words. Out of habit he greeted and chatted at those they passed by but he couldn’t have repeated a word he’d said, so distracted by Finn’s mystery that he almost missed the door to the rooms, standing there for several seconds after Finn opened the door and went in. He stood there, just inside the doorway, watching Finn move around the main room, remove his jacket, lean against the big chair in the middle of the room. That jacket. The one he’d rescued from the TIE fighter on Jakku.

Emotions welled up inside him, too many to sort out right now. Finn was definitely bothered by something. He was pacing. He never paced. That was Poe’s routine and here he was, standing in the doorway, watching this man, the man he would die for, the man he wanted to be with for the rest of his life, pacing. Finn stopped in the middle of the room again and looked at him, dark eyes staring a hole in him.

“Well, Finn, tell me this thing that is distracting you.” The words fell out of Poe’s mouth before he could check them. He hoped they were right. “What is the big deal?”

 

Finn dropped his gaze from Poe’s. “I think I might be Force sensitive,” he stated, plainly and simply, like he’d rehearsed it in his head while pacing the room. When Poe didn’t respond, he continued with the supporting reasons he’d come up with, blurting them out. “I know it sounds strange, but I’ve come to believe this because I was able to feel how those villagers on Jakku felt, I was able to find my way to Niima Outpost instead of getting lost in the desert and I was able to hear the screams of people when the Hosnian system was destroyed while I was on Takodana. And when the General used the Force on me, I was able to feel you and others for several hours afterwards. So it’s been distracting me because I think that General Organa may be able to help me figure this out and maybe even learn to control it and grow stronger.” He waited once he finished, hoping Poe would agree with him, fearing he might just laugh and dismiss it all as delusions of grandeur.

 

Poe stood there, thumbs hooked in his pockets, listening to Finn give his reasons for why he thought he might be Force-sensitive and the only thing that kept coming to mind was the possibility of him going away. He heard Finn mention General Organa, but everyone knew she wasn’t the Force user in her family, that was her brother, on another planet, where Rey had gone. That meant if Finn was serious about this Force business, he’d have to go there. He’d have to leave here, he’d want to leave here. 

Anger exploded inside Poe, fueled by the idea that Finn might rather be with Rey than stay here with him. After all, he’d been in a coma recovering from their fight against Kylo Ren when she’d left. After all, she was the one Finn had risked everything for to go after, to rescue. Poe had just been someone he’d needed to get away from the First Order.

“Fine,” he stated, his eyes locked on Finn’s face, “that’s great. Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out. Only thing is, you’re gonna have to go to Ahch-To for training to be a Jedi. That’s okay, I understand. You and Rey, Jedis with Skywalker. No problem.” He felt pleased when Finn’s head came up and he finally met his gaze. Emotions hit him again and his voice grew rough, but Poe continued, wanting to get it all out. “I’ll wait. Not here, of course, ‘cause we’re bugging out, but at our next base. I’ll wait for you to train and see if this is what you want. But don’t take too long, Finn.” He spat out the name, remembering that he was the one that had given it to him. “I’ll give you time to figure things out. So take it, my gift to you. But don’t take too long.” Poe turned and palmed the door key, stepping out as it opened and looking back at his friend, his lover, the one he wanted to be with forever, and lied to him. “I won’t wait forever.”

The door slid closed on Finn’s shocked expression and Poe walked away. He walked for a long while, lost in his pain and anger, not caring where he went or who saw him. He didn’t speak to anyone that passed by, causing heads to turn, but no one stopped him, so he walked. He ended up on the other side of the mostly empty base, in the commons area there. He stood in the middle of the room, thinking nothing, then went over to the far corner, the area they all called the Bar, nothing more than a counter and some cupboards where everyone stashed liquor to share with each other when they all gathered here. 

He sat and grabbed the first bottle that came to hand and poured a drink. He tossed it back, poured another, tossed it back and poured another before grimacing at the burning sensation setting his throat on fire and bothering to look and see what he was drinking. Corellian brandy. Shrugging, he tossed his drink back and poured another shot.   
  


 

Praksis Jemme glanced up and down the hall, making sure no one was around before ducking into the empty room where her comm equipment was stashed. Now that the Resistance was pulling out their troops from here on D’Qar, it was a lot easier to send her reports off to her master. Still, vigilance was key to remaining undetected, so she always checked, always watched. She didn’t go by her real name here, of course, or have anything that gave her true identity away. If anyone found out she wasn’t what she seemed, nothing she possessed would point its way to the Knights of Ren, or Kylo Ren, or even her master, Lord Faileas. At the most, they might be able to trace her connection to the First Order.

She wasn’t actually a full-fledged member of the Knights of Ren, anyway. Which was why she’d been chosen for this job. She was Force-sensitive, but just barely. Skywalker himself had dismissed her as untrainable, but she could feel him. She could also feel his sister, General Leia Organa-Solo. Best of all, she could feel those who weren’t Force-sensitive but still resonated within its field, the ones that were in tune. Han Solo was one of these, or had been. Poe Dameron was another who set off her senses when she got close to him. There were others, Major Ematt among them, that set her senses off, and now the new guy, Finn, that the General had taken under her wing. This was one of the talents she had that made her perfect for this job. 

She also appeared human, but wasn’t, not quite. That was the other thing that made her so right for this line of work. As a Keshian, she looked human in appearance, except for her oddly colored eyes that many mistook for contacts or augmentations, but were a part of her heritage, capable of viewing light in a broader spectrum, from ultraviolet up through the infrared. She used this to her advantage by keeping all her records in one of those unusual spectrums so the files would appear blank to any human who opened them. She could also send and receive messages layered over normal communications, making it even harder for her duplicity to be discovered. 

Right now, she was scanning her hidden cameras for infrared signatures, indications of someone coming this way. After several moments of no alarms, she pulled out the miniature communications array she’d stashed in the room back when it had been cleared out and connected to the base’s outgoing bandwidth, hitching a ride on the outgoing messages to hide her signal. Time to report the latest update to Lord Faileas.

This was her one weakness, the fact that she knew him, and reported to him directly. Granted they’d have to make her talk to find out anything about him, which meant they’d have to catch her, and that wasn’t likely. To all appearances, she was just another rebel, doing her part for the Resistance.

The signal beeped, indicating a connection had been forged, having been bounced around several hyperspace relays to hide its origin and now was responding back to let her know it was ready.

“Greetings, my Lord.” She never used his name. “I have news about the datapads from the security sector. They were inaccessible due to unforeseen countermeasures. They were instead delivered to GLOS, who will most likely be able to counter those measures and obtain the information therein. Her infonet will need monitoring to see if any of the information appears there.”

She paused and thought over her next sentence carefully. “The aide that was conditioned to present the datapads had her conditioning negated by the application of the Force. It would seem that the control shown by that person,” she emphasized the word to indicate who she was referring to, knowing he would understand her implication, “may be slipping. She was also felt to be exerting her,” another pause for emphasis, “command on the ex-trooper now known as Finn.”

Her grimace at this remained unseen as this was a voice-only report. “He may be more sensitive than was previously determined by myself. I will continue to monitor him and give another update as soon as possible.”

She sent the signal that indicated her initial report was complete. Now to wait for a reply. She checked her cameras and other sensors, making sure she was still undetected. The reply came sooner than expected.

“Well done, my faithful servant.” Lord Faileas’s voice purred through the headset receiver, making her shiver at the praise. “It is your duty to remain as close to the people you are monitoring as possible. Especially GLOS. Finn is secondary but find out what you can. If there are more incidents with her,” Lord Faileas’s voice paused here then came back sounding expectant, almost eager, “loss of control, let me know as soon as possible without putting yourself at undue risk. Do what you must, but remain a part of her entourage. Extreme caution will be necessary, but I am expecting your success. Remain faithful.”

With that, the message ended and Praksis Jemme grinned savagely. Her life was about to get a whole lot more interesting. All she had to do was find a way to be assigned to General Organa’s personal entourage and make herself a trusted member of her inner circle. 

One of her sensor alarms tripped, flashing an ultraviolet signal to her personal datapad at the same time she felt a tingle on her scalp and across the backs of her hands. Someone was coming and it was one who was resonant in the Force. Quickly she stashed her equipment and considered her escape routes. If she ducked into the halls, she risked being spotted and stopped for questioning. Luckily, she had prepared for this contingency as well. 

Triggering a wall panel, she slipped into the space between the panels for this room and the next and sidestepped to where the stone of the outside wall blocked the way, then climbed up the pillar and into the ceiling. Laying flat, she belly-crawled over the room she had just been in, only stopping when she heard the voice of Major Ematt speaking to one of his subordinates.

“I know there’s no sign of anyone having been here in days, but our tracker has triangulated the source of the hijacked signal to this area, so unless it was an automated transmission, someone was here in one of these rooms. Sweep the area with all available resources. I want any trace of the infiltrator found as soon as possible.”

The noise of people scrambling to get droids and equipment to fulfill the Major’s orders made for good cover and Jemme used it to her advantage, slipping along the ceiling until she reached a public refresher unit and slid down into one of the stalls, then exiting to wash her hands and head out the door into the commons area nearby.

The sight of Poe Dameron, sitting by himself and drinking was too good an opportunity to pass up. She made her way over to him as quickly as possible without making it look like she was in a hurry.

“Hey there!” She gave her voice an extra sultry edge as she spoke, wanting to catch his attention in the most obvious of ways. “Poe Dameron, right?”

He looked up at her, slightly bleary-eyed, and she realized he was well on his way to alcohol-induced oblivion. He gave her one of his trademark smiles, or tried to. It came out looking as bleary as his eyes. “Hey there, yourself.” He paused, taking a drink, then narrowed his eyes, trying to bring her more into focus. “Keshian, right?”

Jemme nodded, surprised he would know the difference. “That’s right. How’d you know?” She held out her hand before he could answer. “Aylea Serano. Pleasure to finally meet you, Commander.”

He made a drunken attempt to kiss the back of her hand that got them both laughing, which enabled her to hide her shiver as Major Ematt and a couple of his people approached them. She could feel him moving closer so deliberately cocked one hip to the side and leaned a little closer to Dameron, shrugging her shoulders to bounce her breasts more. He ogled them as she had intended, making the Major have to repeat his question twice more to get his attention.

“Commander Dameron, are you incapacitated while on duty?”

“Hell no, Major,” Dameron replied, sloshing more drink into his glass and pouring some into a second one he fetched from the counter, “I’m completely duty-free at the moment.” For some reason, this set him off in a fit of giggles that ended in hiccups. Jemme picked up her glass and tossed the drink back in one gulp, gasped and turned to face the Major, hoping he would think she was more drunk than she really was.

“Good,” he replied, eyeing her critically. “I wouldn’t want you setting a bad example for this young lady here. Who isn’t on duty either, correct?” He waited for her answer.

“Sure thing. I mean I’m duty-free as well, Major.” She smiled at his men and winked at the Major. “I would never drink this stuff on duty. After all, loose lips crash starships.” She giggled, which set Dameron off again. He reached out and grabbed her by the hips, pulling her down onto his lap, causing her to whoop in surprise. Not really, as she’d felt his intent ahead of time, but her scream distracted the Major’s men even more and caused Ematt to give them a scathing glare before turning away, beckoning his men to follow.

Jemme felt Dameron’s breath on the back of her neck as his arms slipped around her waist. She expected some drunken comment or proposition to be whispered in her ear. Instead his voice came low and intense and not nearly as drunk as he’d seemed.

“Why is Major Ematt interested in you, my dear? Who are you?”


	11. Blow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey learns why Luke is so angry at Kylo Ren. Kylo and Luke cause her to become angry and create a dangerous situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To repeat myself: I have never climbed a cliff before, but I've tried to be as realistic and correct in my terms and descriptions as possible. Source material for my inspiration is the description of climbing Lotus Flower Tower in the Cirque of the Unclimbables - [Bombing in the Cirque of the Unclimbables](http://www.summitpost.org/bombing-in-the-cirque-of-the-unclimbables/354428). If any mistakes are made, it's all on me.

Kylo Ren came awake from a deep, restful sleep, something he hadn’t had in a very long time. His mind was still blurry from unremembered dreams that remained only as lingering impressions. Out of recent habit, he reached out along the link to Rey, wanting to check on her. The link thrummed with tension, giving him the impression of high emotions spilling from her. 

Another thrum of energy through the Force caught his attention. It was similar to the link he shared with Rey, but lighter, less intense. He closed his eyes and concentrated on it, curiosity getting the better of him. He followed it from Rey outward, to his uncle! He felt anger blossom in his gut. How dare he form a bond with her? This thought flashed through his mind even as he was reaching out to her through their link.

She blocked his anger, deflected it, but didn’t flinch or push him away like she had last time. He felt a flicker of hope spark and cautiously reached out to her, softer this time. Focusing on her, he could feel sunlight on her head, rough rock under her hands, cool air blowing around her. She was sweating, though not profusely, and seemed to be working out or doing something strenuous, but it was something she was enjoying.

He extended his senses out and located his uncle. He was alongside her, and working like she was. A sense of great height came to him, accompanied by a wave of vertigo that hit him, making him dizzy. He never had liked heights. When she lunged upward, he realized they were scaling a cliff. His stomach churned and he pulled back a little from the link to escape the sensation of height and lack of solid footing. It amazed him that his uncle was there alongside Rey. He hadn’t thought Luke was that adventurous. 

Enjoying the sensations that were coming from her climbing and moving, Kylo settled back in his chair. He hadn’t felt like this in a very long time and it took him a long moment to remember what it was. Finally, it came to him. He felt happy.

  
  


Rey stepped back from the embrace with Luke first, her eyes shining with emotion. She could feel Luke radiating his usual calm now. This was confirmed by the smile he gave her in answer to hers.

“Shall we finish our climb now?” she asked. At his nod, she turned back to the view over the meadow for one last look, then began going through the checks Luke had shown her for her equipment. Beside her, Luke started doing the same, then stopped.

“Rey, I just want to tell you,” he began. When he hesitated, she looked over at him, wondering why he’d paused. His face was thoughtful, but he didn’t look at her. “That maneuver you did, it was absolutely brilliant. I shouldn’t have…”

She interrupted him. “Yes, you should have. You were right. I shouldn’t have done that without being secured somehow.” She shook her head. “I should definitely know better.” She blushed and looked away from him even though he wasn’t looking directly at her. His chuckle brought her head around to see him shaking his head as he began to set up for his ascent. She waited but when he didn’t say anything, she stepped up to the wall and started her own ascent. After a couple of movements up, she had to ask. “What’s so funny?”

“We are, Rey.” Luke’s voice came from just above her. “We both should know better. I should know better as a teacher. You should know better as an experienced climber. Yet lately, all we seem to do is get each other upset. Me especially.” He fell silent as he moved from one section of the wall to another. She was nearly caught up to him before he spoke again. “I really want to be a better teacher, Rey. I wonder if it would make a difference if my own teachers had been able to help me more.”

“I think you are a wonderful teacher,” Rey said. She couldn’t imagine how much more patient anyone could be than Luke. “I’ve learned from a lot of different people growing up. Just because you know something, doesn’t mean you can teach it.”

She moved up over a bulge in the rock, fixed her rope to the small crack on the left and reached for the next set of handholds. A tingle in the Force warned her ahead of time and when Kylo charged along the bond between them, she blocked him and deflected his anger, but didn’t push him back like she had last time. Instead, she sent out a feeling of welcome, inviting him to stay if he behaved himself. She wasn’t sure why he was angry, until she looked up to see Luke had paused in his climb and was watching her. 

“Is he bothering you again?” Luke called down to her. She could hear tension in his tone, along with forced humor.

“No,” she called back, “I’m not letting him.” She checked her lines and lunged up to grab the handhold that was just out of reach. A queasy feeling came back to her from Kylo and she felt him pull back. She laughed and called up to Luke, “Seems he’s not fond of heights!”

Luke looked down at her, his eyes narrowed, like he was trying to see more than just her.

“Oh really?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but started climbing again. It took Rey a moment to realize he hadn’t been asking a question. She could feel a painful, sad feeling coming from Luke now. Taking a deep breath, she dove into that figurative hole.

“Tell me why you and Kylo hate each other so much.” Her request came out as a command, even going so far as to have an underlying suggestion bolstered by the Force. She hadn’t intended for that to happen and braced herself for backlash from Luke. Instead he seemed almost relieved she had brought it up.

Luke felt the command in Rey’s voice and resisted it easily because of trained reflexes, though he was proud of her for being able to do it so effortlessly. Again a slight twinge of jealousy nibbled at him. He still recalled his first attempts at using suggestions, at even just accessing and using the Force. He quickly squelched that feeling and focused on maneuvering up a large crack in the rock face. When he felt more under control, he answered her.

“When Leia and Han told me they were pregnant, I was excited for them. I never thought they’d have twins, or that both boys would be Force-sensitive.” He paused, knowing this would be news to Rey and she would likely need a few moments to process it. He watched her as she stopped, down and to the right of him, her face hidden by the tilt of her head. He reached out through the Force to see if he could tell how she was taking it. To his surprise, he could feel her as though she was next to him. 

The realization that they now had a Force Bond between them seemed to shock her as well. She tossed her head back and stared at him, then reached out in the Force to touch him. It was only for a brief second and feather-light, but eased the ache he’d carried inside immensely.

When she didn’t say anything, he continued the story. “The two boys were identical twins, at least in appearance. Ben, Obi Wan actually, was always very confident and adventurous, while his younger brother,  Bail - named after Leia’s adoptive father, was the sensitive one.” Luke halted in his climb and secured himself against the wall, then unslung his canteen and took a long drink, thirsty from talking more than he had in a long time. 

He waited until Rey caught up to him. When she did, he reached out to touch her arm, wanting some idea of how she was taking this so far. She met his gaze with a look of perplexity, like she was wanting to ask questions. He waited, but she just shook her head.

“Please, continue,” she said, almost desperate in her request. 

Luke wondered how much Kylo could tell from his contact with her while she was listening.

“I’m blocking him from hearing what you’re saying,” Rey responded, answering his unspoken question. 

Luke thought about this a moment. “Okay,” he acknowledged her action with the simple reply. He still felt he should edit the story. Some information was still too sensitive to broach.

Rey nodded and motioned for him to continue.

“They both showed early signs of being Force-sensitive, especially once they reached full awareness,” Luke stated, then at her questioning look, he expanded the explanation. “Children don’t become fully aware of themselves as separate beings until they reach four or five years of age, most times. For Leia’s boys, I think it was around their fourth year that they could…” He stopped mid-sentence and moved himself over half a meter where the rock formed hard knobs poking out of the main cliff face, creating a better route with ready-made handholds. 

Rey finished his sentence while he was securing his line, feeling from her link with him how emotional this subject was making him. “ They could access the Force that young, is what you’re saying.”

“Yes, exactly.” Luke affirmed softly, almost too quiet for her to hear. He cleared his throat, climbed another few minutes, then continued talking. “Long story, short version, they became quite a handful and Leia asked if I would begin teaching them how to be Jedi.” 

“How old…?” Rey asked.

“Close to ten. I don’t know if I should have started when they were younger or what, but I know Master Yoda thought I was way too old when I went to him and the teachings of the Jedi that I’ve found say they used to start with children as young as three, though that meant taking them from their parents and raising them all together in the Temples. But what do I know about teaching Jedi, let alone raising children?” Luke couldn’t stop the regret from coming out in his tone.

Rey shook her head. “I can’t imagine taking on that responsibility. I don’t know how…”

Luke’s deprecatory chuckle stopped her mid-sentence. “”I didn’t. I decided to set up a school on an isolated planet in a colony situation. The parents of children who were interested in them being tested and trained came there and lived in the colony if their children were accepted. There were a few who were abandoned…” He winced as he realized what he’d said.

“Abandoned? Like I was?” Rey’s tone was sharp, her pain jarring to Luke along their newly forged connection. He reached out to touch her arm, giving her a quick squeeze.

“Yes, Rey. And no, but with our group, we took in those few whose parents didn’t want to take the responsibility and made sure they had a family to care for them.” He was rewarded for this explanation by her quick smile, but the renewed hurt in her eyes made him ache anew for her. He paused in his climbing a moment, lost in his memories.

“The boys quickly adapted to the training and excelled at nearly everything I taught them.”

“Nearly?” Rey asked, her breath quickening as she climbed closer to hear his answer.

Luke looked away from her, closing his eyes against the pain of what he was about to tell her. He felt a warmth engulf him through the Force as she reached out to him, offering him comfort and encouragement. As this was the main reason he’d brought them here, he took a deep breath and tried, only to have his throat close up, filled with tears. He began to climb again. They made it several more meters before he felt able to speak again without losing control of his emotions. 

“By the time Ben and Bail were twenty, they were helping train the others that were there in the colony. We had a small group of exceptional students and more younglings were showing up as word spread of our success.” Luke made a transition from one line of approach over to a more promising crack. Rey looked up and decided to take a different route further to their right, allowing her to remain level with Luke so she could more easily hear him speak. 

Seeing her come up level with him, Luke grinned and climbed higher. Rey followed suite, letting herself enjoy the working of her muscles against the ropes and rock face, the wind blowing around them, bringing smells of the ocean and the green growing things below. Lichen and small plants appeared every now and then on the rock face, blown into cracks and crevices by the weather and surviving by clinging wherever they landed. It wasn’t until they stopped again for a drink that Luke continued his story. Rey didn’t press him, knowing how hard, feeling how hard this was for him to revisit. She could tell he wanted her to know, so she waited and climbed, letting him proceed as best as he could.

“Ben was a natural leader among the older students,” he stated without preamble, handing her a strip of dried fish from his backpack. She hadn’t even thought about food until now, so distracted by the climb and his words that she’d ignored her hunger. Not that it was hard for her, with as much practice as she’d had in the past, but she’d come to enjoy eating over the past few months she’d been here. They chewed in silence and she waited for him to continue. 

He fiddled with his harness, reluctance visible on his face. Finally, he sighed and continued. “I left them in charge of the students and the training while I went looking for Jedi Temples. Ben was working with the oldest students, those who were the farthest along in their training. It was because they were so far along that I felt the need to find more information about how to…” he searched for the right word for a moment, then found one that would work, “graduate them to Knights so they could take on their own padawans and spread the knowledge and training faster among the newer, younger students.” 

Luke shook his head, sorrow drawing deep lines on his face. “Something went horribly wrong. Somehow, I missed the fact that Ben had been seduced by the Dark Side and had drawn the others along with him. I missed how much influence had been exerted over him throughout the years. I thought he was having nightmares influenced by the Force, not actually being manipulated by Snoke.” His voice broke and he went silent, looking away from Rey again, his food forgotten in his hand.

Rey waited a moment then reached out along their bond and sent him soothing thoughts and feelings, touching his arm with her hand to back up her comfort physically. He flinched from her touch, both physically and along the Force link, withdrawing himself from her. She could once again sense the Darkness rising in him, brought on by the subject they were discussing. His despair and guilt combined with his anger to reopen that black hole within him. She maintained her reach out to him, hoping it would help him fight it back. After several long moments, he managed to get himself under control again and started talking, the words spilling out from his lips like he was spitting them out to get their taste from his tongue.

“Apparently, while I was gone, there was an argument that got out of control and Ben…” his voice cracked and he continued in a whisper, “Ben struck down his brother along with several of the students, then he and seven of the students that were still alive stole a ship and defected to the First Order, swearing their loyalty to Snoke. He made them the Knights of Ren, with Ben as Master Kylo Ren.”

When he fell silent this time, Rey was too stunned to say anything or even reach out to him. Suddenly she was very aware of Kylo’s presence in her mind and her skin crawled in horror that she’d allowed such a monster access to her in such a vulnerable way. Violently, she shoved his presence away and blocked him out as much as she could. She hung her head in shame, hot tears burning against her closed eyelids as she leaned against the rock, grateful for its strength and solid presence for her to hold onto.

“I’m sorry.” Luke’s voice was soft and filled with sorrow but it made her look up to meet his gaze. Blinking away the tears that threatened to fall, she reached out to touch his outstretched hand. 

With a sudden rush, Kylo filled her senses as he charged along their link and burst through her blocks, demanding to know why she had pushed him away. Not in words, but his demand was crystal clear to her. She closed her eyes and in her mind, rounded on him, sending him her full impression of how she felt and why. His shock was quickly replaced by anger, not at her, but directed at Luke. From the corner of her eye, she saw Luke flinch as the harsh emotion being fed to her overflowed along the link she shared with him. 

Luke’s response, to push back and attempt  to help her block Kylo out, made Rey feel like the rope in a Force tug-o-war. She clung to the cliffside for a moment, overwhelmed by the raw emotions and Force energy raging through her that weren’t her own, then felt the anger rise up stronger than it ever had before.

“Get out of my head!” she shouted, pushing back against the two opposing presences within her, forcing them to retreat in the face of her indignation. “Out!” she yelled again, bringing all her Force power that she could muster to bear and focusing it on pushing them both out of her head and away from her mind. 

Luke recoiled when she shoved him out of her mind, feeling ashamed that he’d overreacted and caused her to do such a thing. Before he could do anything more, her anger erupted from her, rippling out into the Force as well as along the cliff face, making him glad to be secured by his climbing harness as he braced himself and leaned into the shockwave.

When it passed, he looked to Rey, checking to see that she was alright. She looked chagrinned when he caught her gaze, flushing and glancing away.

“Are you okay?” he asked after giving her a moment longer to recuperate. She looked back at him, but before she could answer, a loud crack came from above them, echoing loudly across the valley and reverberating back to them. Looking up, Luke could see cracks racing up the rock face at angles starting from a point not quite two meters above Rey’s head. Quicker than they could see, the cracks shot up the cliff, spreading to encompass an area nearly thirty meters wide. Just above Luke’s head about five or six meters, the splitting crack hit the already present fissure he’d been climbing up, stopping it from spreading anymore that direction. On Rey’s side, however, it continued to crack at its original angle until it reached to the top of the cliff. 

Luke reached out with the Force, trying to determine the extent of the break. To his horror, he found that the split went up the entire cliff above Rey’s head, making a giant arrow head shaped flake that was even now starting to slide down toward her. Calling on the Force, he pushed at the rock, wanting to divert it away from her but first needing to keep it from sliding more. It halted and he could feel its full weight and shape now. 

The size of the flake was such that he would need to bring it out about 5 meters in order for the top of it to miss her once he let it drop. Easier would be to hold it in place while she climbed over to the other side of him, then let it go to fall naturally. Also, moving over she could avoid most of the pieces that were breaking loose and falling from between the cliff and the flake.

“Rey, come this way!” he shouted, realizing the air was filled with the sounds of rocks cracking and breaking loose. Pieces of broken rock were, even now, falling down past them. He was inordinately pleased to see her deflecting these pieces with ease. She deftly knocked these away, but was having trouble moving her ropes over while concentrating on deflecting the rock pieces. Luke knew from experience that deflection was not hard until something got through, then it became exponentially harder from there. Which meant she should be okay long enough to get out of the pathway of the falling rocks.

Suddenly she flinched, then closed her eyes. Luke started deflecting the rock pieces, but then felt Kylo’s presence, much as he had before, through Rey. This time, Kylo wasn’t trying to reach out through her, instead he was helping her split her concentration between the rocks and her ropes, allowing her to climb over to his side. Once she reached him, she unhooked her harness from the rock, secured it to his anchored harness and swung around him, catching hold of the fissure he was next to and securing her harness to the rock on the other side. 

She took a deep breath, then nodded at him, placing her hand on his arm. He felt a surge of power through the Force and realized she was channeling what she was receiving from Kylo to him. With the influx, he reached out and pushed the giant rock flake away from where they were, then allowed it to fall. It took several long moments before the crash of it hitting the ground reverberated up to them, then echoed back and forth against the rock walls, joined by another crack and boom as the flake broke and the top half hit the ground.  

 


	12. Motion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Phasma reflects on her plans and life goals. General Hux receives news, both wanted and unwanted, and begins his plans for domination. Finn makes a momentous decision.

Tzadkiel could feel the anger burning inside her stronger than ever as she prepared for her shift this day. It never truly went away, having been apart of her for as long as she could remember, but some days it just burned hotter than others. Back when she had been young and idealistic, she had decided that she would do whatever it took for her to satisfy this burning within and today was one of those days when she would be taking one step closer to achieving her goals.

It wasn’t really anger, not the kind that came from being mad or upset, but she didn’t know what else to call it. No other word was large enough to encompass how it made her feel. It has started when she had lost her father. She had been only eight years old, waiting for word of his homecoming after having been away on special assignment for nearly a year. Normally he worked as a supervisor managing construction crews in the shipyards of Kuat, but this assignment, his latest one, had been special, granted only to those deemed especially loyal to the Empire. 

She hadn’t found out until she was much older exactly what the assignment had been or how her father had died. Serving in the army of the New Republic after her graduation at the top of her class at Arkanis Academy, she had searched for a way to get rid of the dull ache she’d felt since her father’s death, but it only worsened with each passing year as the New Republic government seemed more interested in squabbling over rank and importance than actually doing anything like restoring order to the galaxy or putting an end to the many criminal syndicates that infested multiple regions of occupied space. This dissatisfaction became full-blown disgust the moment she found and read a file containing the revelation of her father’s assignment, which led her to the knowledge of how he had died. 

Her father had been on the second Death Star, overseeing the work crews there that had been ordered to increase their activity to complete vitally necessary portions of the weapons and structure so that it would be fully operational before it was finished. She wasn’t sure who the specific pilots had been that had destroyed the battle station during the Battle of Endor. What she did know is that it was Rebel forces that had infiltrated the moon base and lowered the shields, enabling their fighters to gain access to the inner parts and trigger the explosion that had destroyed it. The fact that the Emperor hadn’t evacuated the station despite the attack, or even during the attack, made him just as complicit in her mind for her father’s death. 

Thus, when the chance came for her to join the First Order and work with Brendol Hux in training the new generation of stormtroopers, she hadn’t hesitated. It fulfilled her desire to restore order and allowed her to plan and work toward her ultimate goal of making everyone responsible pay for her loss.

Tzadkiel put away her private thoughts and donned her armor, its chrome alloy buffed to reflect and deflect anything that might come her way. She was Captain Phasma now, working with Brendol’s son, General Hux, to make the First Order into what the Empire could have been if Emperor Palpatine hadn’t let his overblown ego get out of control. As Captain Phasma, her plans that she had spent years working on, laying the foundations for, were now underway and her patience was soon to be rewarded.

Captain Phasma received the message that she was being asked for by the pilot of Kylo Ren’s shuttle, one JB-6007 by designation, and grinned inside her helmet as she made her way to the bridge of the Finalizer to clear his actions with Hux’s bridge crew. The fact that Ren had taken the man with him on one of his little jaunts instead of commandeering a squadron of troopers or going by himself was a promising new development. She considered it fortuitous that she’d had the trooper sent to the Finalizer for reconditioning before Starkiller Base had been destroyed. This stroke of luck alongside the disaster of losing the base had given her cause to reevaluate her plans. Especially since it seemed too much for just coincidence that she’d escaped that trash compactor she’d been tossed down and made it back to the Finalizer in time to see Hux land with Ren in tow, broken but still alive and give the order to their remaining fleet vessels to retreat to the Outer Rim.

Now, she felt that she was on a better path, one that would lead her to fulfill her lifelong goal. The fact that this plan included Ren now as well as Hux made it all the more exciting and dangerous. She knew she would have to move very carefully with them in order to get the two of them not only moving in the right direction, but working together as they did so. When Ren had first shown up on the Finalizer, informing Hux that he was there to see Starkiller Base finished and used according to Supreme Leader Snoke’s wishes, she had often wondered if she would one day have to forcibly keep Hux from ordering Ren shot and dragged from the bridge. Ren’s face had never been visible, but she often suspected him of baiting Hux just to get a rise out of him, to provoke him. Fortunately, Hux’s iron control only ever permitted scathing looks shot at Ren’s back, as well as the check of knowing that Ren was only answerable to Snoke.

Since the destruction of the base, however, something had changed, most visibly with Hux. Knowing a lot of his past, she had some insight into what this might be. Hux hadn’t told her everything that had happened, but she had seen his look of shock and concern that night they had escaped the nova that Starkiller Base had become. Now it remained to be seen how Ren would react in the circumstances she had planned for him. If she had evaluated his personality correctly, it would turn out the way she had planned and that would be to the benefit of her and her goals. She had studied him ever since he had arrived, gathering as much information about him as she could, but with strong-willed people like him, things were never completely certain.

The sparring match she had initiated yesterday evening with him had started things off well. The dinner tonight should prove even more interesting and should lead to the next phase in their budding relationship. She had worked and planned and waited for just these circumstances to put things in motion and with her training and experience, she was an expert in setting up just the right conditions. Assigning trooper JB-6007 to Ren after the reconditioning she had put him through was working as planned, making it even more likely that the other plans she had in motion would succeed as well. 

Such a delicate situation as these plans put her in required nerves harder than tungsteel alloy and the willingness to risk losing a step to gain a meter. She had both and with Hux in hand and Ren soon to follow, she now had powerful allies. As for the rest of Ren’s knights, she had plans in place but for now was willing to let Hux take the lead with his own special delivery, Just in case, she had ordered special armor made, laced with cortosis ore to negate the effects of lightsabers, and planned on wearing it during any confrontation she had with them in the near future. 

Getting the knights to accept not only hers but also Hux’s authority as well as Ren’s was one thing, although not an absolute necessity, that would strengthen their position. Ren was vital, however, if they were to succeed, because of Snoke as well as any Jedi or other Force-user the Resistance might think to use against them as the leaders of the First Order. Ren was necessary, but where one was good, seven would be better, if they could be controlled and focused. 

Reaching the bridge, she made her way to the comm center, then waited for the young officer there to put her through to JB-6007. She was sure it wasn’t anything more serious than giving him clearance for him to take Ren wherever they were headed, but again, she reminded herself, this was a delicate time in her plans that could go wrong if Ren suspected anything was amiss.

Hux was on the bridge, watching her from his usual position by the forward windows, trying not to look too interested in what she was doing or show concern for what should be just a slightly out of routine request. After all, it was Ren and he was known to do what he wanted. Hux hadn’t been as sanguine as she was about the assignment of the trooper to Ren as an aide, until she’d explained why. Even then, knowing that she had a specific purpose behind the reassignment, Hux was still reluctant, unwilling to put his trust in something so unquantifiable. Phasma knew though, what the trooper had gone through and what his past was, and that this along with the suggestions she had implanted during their sessions, made this one of the least risky parts of the plan.

After her conversation with the trooper, Phasma headed back to the training area of the Finalizer, leaving Hux to keep an eye on Ren. She still had soldiers to train and the usual duties to get through while waiting for results. Anticipation made her twitchy, which made her irritable. She almost felt sorry for any soldier that performed less than acceptable on days like today. Almost. But she was determined to be ready for what was to come and these soldiers would be ready as well.  _ Anyone who wasn’t ready, or stood in her way when the time came for her to move,  _ she thought, clenching her fists as she marched,  _ would be swept aside like dirt in a rainstorm. _

  
  


General Hux paced the bridge of the Finalizer slowly, hiding his impatience. He was waiting for his special delivery to arrive and trying not to show outwardly that he was waiting for anything but the end of his shift. This delivery was not for his crew, but for a very specific group, the Knights of Ren. 

This thought led him to another one that gave him momentary pause then had him stopping next to one of the bridge crew and speak to her quietly.

“Give me an update on the shuttle.” He rarely called Kylo Ren by name to his crew, but as there was only the one shuttle they were tracking at the moment, she knew exactly who he was referring to. They had been tracking him all day, ever since he had commandeered the shuttle instead of showing up for his training session this morning, setting off alerts and making everyone extremely aware of his disregard for any kind of order or hierarchy. 

Hux had always been aware of Ren, from the moment he first stepped onto his ship. Any thought that Ren would go away had quickly been dismissed, much like his authority. Hux’s attention had been taken up more than he ever expected by that person. Even before Phasma had brought up her plan and and specifically mentioned him, Hux had found his thoughts straying to moments of Kylo Ren caught out of time, his mask undone. Two moments in particular kept rising up at the most inopportune times, like now, when he was trying to act nonchalant.

The first moment was when he had entered the conference room to report the loss of that droid to Supreme Leader Snoke and found Ren there, unmasked and disturbed. He’d appeared shocked to see Hux without the mask between them, turning his face away, embarrassed at being caught out of character. As Hux had reported, Ren’s refusal to look at him became a wall of defiance, drawing Hux’s attention in spite of himself. He still could see Ren’s profile if he closed his eyes, see Ren’s jaw clenched, eyes burning with unknown passion and defiance.

The second moment that haunted Hux now was the stark, shocking contrast of Ren laying in the snow of Starkiller Base as the shuttle hovered down next to him, troops scrambling to retrieve him. By the look of him, Hux had expected him to be dead, or dying. This affected him more than expected. When he’d received the order from Snoke to retrieve the errant knight, he’d figured on fetching him from the middle of a fight. No one had known about the previous wound Ren had received before chasing after that girl like a lunatic.

Seeing that form lying crumpled in the snow, face down in a pool of blood, Hux suffered unbidden memories of having to put down a favorite mount during a hunt when he was young due to an accident resulting in life-threatening injuries. His own life had been spared and he’d walked out on his own two feet, but he remembered now that same feeling. The extent of Ren’s injuries had been such that Hux hadn’t seen the knight for months afterward as he recuperated. Now it would seem, they were destined to become partners, according to plans laid out by Phasma and now in motion.

“Sir, the Upsilon shuttle KR-1138 is prepping its hyperdrive engines.” The sudden intrusion of the young officer’s update into his thoughts brought Hux back to the present with a jolt.

“What’s its destination?” he snapped back, his training kicking in. First priority in an unknown scenario, gather more intel. He strode over to the technician tracking the shuttle and waited impatiently for the answer. The technician jumped a bit at this unwanted attention, then settled back into his job. 

“Nothing specific yet, sir. There’s only a few hyperspace lanes available from here, but within two jumps they’ll have access to a dozen or more.” Hux nodded, then turned to the comm officer that had handled the call from the shuttle earlier.

“Have you requested a flight plan?” The officer nodded and turned to face him.

“We have, sir, but no response has come back yet.” She managed to keep her voice crisp and calm, but there was nervousness in her eyes, same as was in the technician’s. Everyone knew that Kylo Ren reported directly to the Supreme Leader. They also knew that their orders to track his every move and report it came from General Hux and went to him. The tension between the Master Knight and their General was well known, but loyalty to their commanding officer won out over a leader they had never met.

Hux nodded. He didn’t have to say anything, but the officer and the technician both sat a little straighter in their chairs, having received this acknowledgement. He turned to go back to the main bridge, then had a thought and looked back over his shoulder.

“Activate the tracking module on the shuttle and follow it to its destination. As soon as it is known where Master Ren is heading, report directly to me.” The murmurs of their assent to this order was drowned out by another officer that had approached him from the back of the bridge.

“Sir, your presence is requested in hangar bay A-7. It’s a cargo ship and the captain is stating that he is not to speak to anyone but you upon his arrival.”

Refraining from grinning outright, Hux gave the man a brief nod and motioned for him to lead the way. “Notify Captain Phasma to meet me there immediately,” he ordered as he headed down the hall, his long legs eating up the distance, the aide that was supposed to be leading the way having to jog to keep up. As he walked, he considered what could be done about Ren taking off on this unscheduled jaunt. The questions of where and why would have to wait until he was retrieved. It was the method of retrieval that concerned him at the moment.

By the time he reached the hangar bay where his special delivery awaited him, he’d made his decision and formulated a plan. Captain Phasma met him there, her armor shining in the bright lights of the bay. Waving the aide that had come with him off to the side, he quickly filled her in on the recent update with Ren and his plan to retrieve the wayward knight. She responded eagerly, flexing her hands in anticipation.

“I’ll get myself and my men ready for action, General.”

Watching her leave before he went to see about the delivery, Hux decided he would have to look into getting her promoted. An upgrade to her title would better suit her true position, he told himself. Finally allowing himself a grin, he turned and made his way over to the cargo ship that contained his new acquisitions. If they lived up to his expectations, then Captain Phasma would not be the only one he would be needing a new title for.

  
  


Finn stood in the center of the room he and Poe shared, shocked into inaction as Poe stormed out the door. The words he had spoken didn’t sink in for several moments, as Finn had never been accused of anything before, except maybe trying too hard or being too empathetic. When it finally registered that Poe had told him to go off and be with Rey, he realized that this is what jealousy must look like. 

Leaning back against the large overstuffed chair that dominated the room, he contemplated Poe’s reaction and why he might be jealous. Finn thought he’d been very clear that this was about using the Force, not about who he wanted to be with. He sighed, concluding that he was still too new at relationships to figure this all out right now. 

He could feel pressure building at the back of his head, like what he’d felt on Jakku and again on Takodana. Taking a deep breath, he tried to relax, to feel that connection that he’d felt earlier in the day. He tried for several long minutes before giving up, his nerves too frazzled. All he saw when he closed his eyes was Poe’s angry face as the door closed on him. 

With a sigh, he made up his mind. He had to know more, even if it meant stepping on toes or offending someone. Sighing again, he headed out the door, going to find the one person he knew for certain would be able to give him some answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who are reading this. I hope you are enjoying the ride. I promise, this is ride will get much more interesting as it continues. Love your comments!


	13. Anger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke and Rey finish their climb. Rey becomes angry at Luke and Kylo, opening herself to danger. Kylo responds to Rey being in danger in an unexpected way.

Luke watched the end of the giant rock flake then turned to look over at Rey, expecting her to be watching him or getting ready to climb again. Instead she had her head bowed, forehead against the rock and was murmuring quietly. When he touched her on the arm to get her attention, she reached out and grabbed his left hand without looking at him, holding on tightly to it, as though needing reassurance or guidance for whatever it was she was doing. Luke held her hand, feeling her draw on their link through Force a couple of times but not saying a word to him.

Finally she relaxed, wiped her face with her free hand and released her hold on his. She glanced his way but seemed reluctant to meet his gaze.

“What…?” he started the question, only to be interrupted by her terse response.

“Kylo needed help. He’d accidentally broken his aide’s arm, helping me, and he didn’t know how to mend it. I showed him how.” She remained silent for a moment, then pulled away and began climbing.

Luke stared after her, eyes narrowed in thought as he evaluated her explanation against what he knew of his nephew. Several things were niggling at his brain, but he shoved them aside for now. He would have to meditate later to fully evaluate everything he’d learned, but he suspected what could only be an impossible and crazy idea was forming in his mind, waiting for him to put all the pieces together.

They climbed the remaining distance, just over a quarter of the total height, in silence. Luke’s focus was on reaching the top before dark. He could feel Rey ahead of him on the cliff face, her emotions burning brightly in his mind, though not in a good way. She reached the edge of the cliff before him, swinging her leg up and rolling over to disappear from sight as she left the rock face.

As Luke levered himself up and over the edge, he could see her standing in the middle of the small meadow that covered the flattened top of the mountain they had reached by way of the cliff side. Her back was to him, but he could see she had her arms wrapped around her waist, her head bowed. Waves of anger and other dark emotions bled from her like water running off a statue in a rainstorm.

Rainstorms always reminded him of the night he’d returned to find the school in flames, burned by the angry parents of those children lost in the fight with the Knights of Ren and those other colonists that had just been scared. Anger tried to rise at this thought, but he ruthlessly shoved it down. Now was not the time to be distracted by his own emotions. He could feel the emotional tipping point Rey was reaching and hoped to be able to save her the agony of the moment.

Fighting a sudden burst of fear, he walked to her and stopped a short distance away, reaching out through the Force while giving her physical space.

“Rey, please. You need to take a breath and calm yourself.” He projected calm even as he spoke, his tone soft.

“No!” Rey shouted, whirling on him as she did so, her hands on her head. “Get out of my head! You,” she pointed at Luke, then made a throwing motion over a few paces to his side, “and you!” She pointed at that place and then back at Luke. “You do not get to fight over me! Am I clear?”

Luke figured she was speaking directly to Kylo as well as him. He could see the anguish in her gaze as well as the anger as she stared at them, seeming to see Kylo as if he were present. Luke nodded.

“Please, Rey.” He reached out to her with both hands this time, palms open and upturned. “You need to calm yourself.”

“Not until you promise!” she demanded, her breathing still heavy.

Luke projected more calmness, hoping to reach her. “I promise, I will not allow myself to do that to you again.”

She nodded at this and looked to his right again. After a moment, she nodded again. Her breathing, however, continued to come fast and hard and she began to rock back and forth from one foot to the other, her fists clenching and unclenching. Tears sprang to her eyes as she fought to get her anger under control.

Luke stepped closer, risking the possibility of her rage exploding into violence against him physically to come within reach of her. He could see her shaking now, her teeth chattering as though she was caught out in the coldness of Hoth. Taking the last step, he gathered her in his arms, pulling her close and wrapping her up, murmuring to her even as he continued to feed her feelings of calmness and light through their link in the Force.

Slowly , she calmed down, her shivering slowing and finally ceasing. With a sigh, she relaxed into his hold, her arms coming up around his waist, her head laying against his shoulder. Luke felt her shudder and then start to shake again. Gently he pulled her away slightly, only to see that she was sobbing.

“Hey, hey, shhh,” he murmured, pulling her close again. He rocked her back and forth a while until her sobbing calmed and she was quiet in his arms. He resisted the urge to rest his cheek on her head, feeling vulnerable right now.

She pulled away from him a little, just enough to look up at him. “What was that?” she whispered, her gaze haunted and fearful. “I was so cold and angry. The Force, it filled me, but,” she shuddered at the memory, “not like it’s ever done before.”

Luke nodded. He’d felt that before, himself. “That was the Dark Side of the Force, drawn in by your anger. You opened yourself to it and it very nearly had you.”

Rey smiled wanly, her eyes revealing how tired she felt now. Unexpected, the urge to pull her close and hold her longer hit him. Luke forced himself to move his hands to her shoulders and give her a smile in return.

“I think you’ll be okay now,” he said, letting go of her and stepping back a pace. She nodded and sank into a sitting position, resting her arms on her knees and her head on her arms. Luke sat down where he was, crossing his legs. He began unbuckling his harness, letting her rest for a few minutes before he continued.

“You should be grateful you were able to resist the pull of the Dark Side, Rey. I know you were upset,” he sighed, “and while I agree that it was a valid reason, still, the Dark Side seduces you with logic and reason until what may have been initially abhorrent becomes acceptable, even desirable.”

She lifted her head to look at him when he didn’t go on. Luke could feel her gaze on him, but was thinking of all that he had learned in his travels and from records he had found of what had gone before.

The Empire had done its best to erase the records of the Old Republic, back when the Jedi Council had been active and Jedi Knights were routinely sent out to help planets with a variety of issues. Once he’d learned the truth, he knew what to look for and how to find what had been hidden, or erased.

Finding out these truths hadn’t meant they had been easy to accept, but he’d come to understand why Obi Wan had always said what he had about looking at things from a certain point of view. Even then, certain truths still made him upset. He often wondered if that was why Obi Wan hadn’t been more involved in his life as a boy. Perhaps his thinking had been that there was a need for new points of view, of new ways to look at things. If so, Luke agreed.

He drew in a breath, steeling himself for this next bit he was about to tell her. “I have felt that cold of the Dark Side throughout the years, tempting me, waiting for me, ever since I started training.” He remembered the first time someone he’d cared for had died and he’d felt her death through the Force. His anger had been justified, but that cold, hard surge of power had made him hesitate long enough to pull him back from that edge.

“I’m sure my father felt it too, many times before he finally succumbed.”

“Your father?” Rey’s curiosity shone in her eyes now, her fatigue forgotten. “Maz Kanata mentioned that your father held that lightsaber before you did.” She made a wry face. “Kylo said it was his.”

“Did he now?” Luke tilted his head and gave her a peculiar stare. He chuckled softly. “Do you know why?”

“Because Leia, I mean, General Organa, is your sister, right?” Rey had that furrow between her eyebrows now, the one she got when she was putting the pieces of a mental puzzle together.

This time though, Luke was sure she didn’t have all the pieces, so he gave her the last one. “Yes, and our father was a powerful Jedi Knight named Anakin Skywalker.”

She nodded acknowledgement of this fact. Luke waited until she gave him her full attention again before finishing giving her everything.

“He succumbed to the Dark Side and became the Sith Lord, Darth Vader.”

 

Kylo’s happy state of mind didn’t last long, interrupted as it was by Rey suddenly, violently forcing him away from her and blocking him from feeling her any longer. Bereft of her solidity, her anchored presence, he felt himself falling. The jarring of his hands and knees as he crashed to the floor of the shuttle brought him back to his own reality. He cried out in anger and pain, unsure of what he’d done to cause Rey to return to her rejection of him so forcefully.

Then Jobe was there at his side, helping him back up and into his chair, concern knitting his brow. Kylo waved him away, then was oddly comforted when he refused to retreat more than a couple of steps away. Bracing himself, Kylo sent himself back along the link between him and Rey, using his pain and anger as a boost in power to get past her blocks, followed by a demand for a reason behind this change of heart.

For a full heartbeat he could hear, see, and feel everything she could, the cliff face solid underneath their hands, the pull of the harness straps against them, the wind in their hair, Luke staring at them, startled by the sensation of them combined. He could even feel Luke’s emotions, muddled and vague, filtered through the connection between him and Rey. Then she rounded on him, forcing him back, out of her head, shouting that familiar phrase into his mind. His inquiry she met with anger, loathing, and fear as she fed him her reaction to what she’d learned from Luke.

Shock that his uncle had revealed to her his dark secret was quickly replaced by his own anger and hatred that Luke would dare take this away, what was between Rey and himself and should have remained untouched, inviolate. Bitterness rose in him that his family would ruin his life again. It was too much. He charged back into Rey along their link, this time reaching out to strike at his uncle.

Luke was there in Rey’s mind, buffering her shields against him, blocking his attack. They clashed, their anger and emotions making them heedless of the battleground on which they met, until she’d had enough.

“Get out of my head!”

The words rang out, vocally and through the Force, blasting them apart and out of her, back into themselves. Kylo recoiled back into his chair, his head snapping back hard against the metal of his seat. The loud hollow bang of his skull on the back of his chair made Jobe jump in surprise, then come forward to hold Kylo as he slumped in his seat, his head ringing in pain.

Kylo grabbed his aide’s arm, grateful for the support as the room spun a couple of times before settling down. He opened his eyes to find himself leaning against Jobe’s side, still holding his arm. Lifting his head, he grinned sheepishly up at him.

Before he could make a wisecrack about it, Rey’s cry of shock and dismay echoed down the link, drawing him back in, only to let out his own gasp. The amazement of finding that her shout had cracked the cliff side was quickly chased away by the panic she was feeling watching the huge chunk of rock beginning to slide down toward her. He focused the Force through her, channeling all he had to offer, grabbing the chunk of rock and halting its slide. The feeling of his uncle joining them shook him for a moment before he felt Rey’s tightened grasp taking over, steadying them both.

A piece of rock broke loose from the main bulk and she shifted her attention just enough to bat it away, deflecting it with the Force. Luke’s voice came through, muffled but clear enough, beckoning her to come his way. Kylo sent her more support, taking control of the rocky mass above to allow her to move as well as keep the smaller pieces from hitting her.

It was going well until she swung around Luke to get to his other side. The sudden weightlessness caused Kylo to lose his concentration for a fraction of a second, long enough for the massive flake to shift. Panic flared in him and he tightened his grip. Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard a cry, but his focus stayed on the rock, now bolstered by the calm assurance flowing from his uncle to Rey and through her, to him.

Rey secured herself, then nodded to Luke. Kylo felt her nod and then Luke’s calming flow directed him to let go of the rock. He did so, pulling back into the nebulous area that separated himself from Rey, not sure if she would still want him close now that she was safe.

The whimper of pain came again, this time registering on his ears as well as in his mind. Retreating fully back into his body, shock snapped his attention completely back as he stared down at Jobe’s head resting on his leg, his arm held firmly in Kylo’s grip, the forearm bones crushed. Vaguely Kylo’s mind provided the memory of his grip on the rock slipping and how he had tightened his hold on it, with the equivalent results here only now apparent.

Another cry rang out, this time from his own mouth as he released his grip and viewed the damage wrought by his hands. Warmth and concern filled him and he realized Rey had responded to his cry as he had to her. Emotion wrecked him momentarily as she evaluated the scene then sent him a jolt of calm assurance that this could be fixed. His protest of ignorance was batted aside as easily as the broken pieces of rock, followed by instructions on healing that she had picked up from when Luke had healed her hands.

This tidbit of knowledge flowed into him along with the Force as it flowed from her, following their link and then out into Jobe’s arm in a way Kylo hadn’t ever thought of before. It was light and warmth and other feelings that had become foreign to him in these past years of darkness. The bones knit back together under their combined will, Jobe’s eyes wide in worshipful awe. Kylo felt wetness on his cheeks, moved by this display of kindness more than he could acknowledge to himself, or to her.

When they finished, she remained with him for only a moment, then retreated. He let her go, no longer feeling the urge to intrude on her or even to know how her climb finished. A hollowness within was all he felt now, as though he’d been emptied out and was now waiting to be filled. Not wanting to give up this new sense of whatever it was he was feeling now, Kylo simply stayed still, Jobe’s head resting in his lap, his aide’s eyes closing now in sleep.

The thrum of the Force along their link brought him out of his silent contemplation, drawing him back to her. This time, her anger was blazing out against the Force, much like it had on Starkiller Base. Kylo could sense Darkness gathering around her, opening up like a hungry maw within her to swallow her whole. A twist of jealousy stabbed through him at how easily the Darkness was responding to her anger, followed by an odd pang of danger that he couldn’t help but respond to. He reached out to her, wanting to pull her away from that blackness inside her. She turned to face him, pinning him down with the force of her attention, and he could feel Luke next to him, oddly calm in the face of her anger and angst.

“You do not get to fight over me! Am I clear?” Her shout came through the Force, harsh and volatile with her emotions. He could feel her staring at him, waiting.

“I promise, Rey. No more fighting over you.” Kylo made the thought loud and clear.

She acknowledged his promise, then let him go. He pulled back, then shivered as she turned her attention back to Luke. The Darkness crept ever closer to her light, blocking it more and more until the only thing Kylo could think to do was move closer to her along their link and try to block it, to keep it from reaching her.

It hit him and he felt like he’d taken the full brunt of that rock wedge falling down to the meadow below. The assault rolled him over and over, tumbling him along as it raced back into himself, carrying him with it, flooding his senses and filling that empty space with all the anger and fear and anguish Rey had turned loose into it. It filled him and overflowed, pulling him under until he was exhausted from fighting it, finally just allowing it to flow through him unabated. Time past him by, all his senses blown by the blast of Darkness.

He came back to himself, covered by a blanket, the smell of food tickling his nose. His stomach rumbled in response, giving him a strange sense of calm and acceptance. Opening his eyes, he was greeted by Jobe setting a tray of food down on the small table set up in front of him.

“Glad to see you awake in time for food, sir!” Jobe’s cheerful voice brought a grin tugging at his mouth. Kylo nodded, then had to ask.

“How’s the arm?”

“None the worse for wear.” Jobe grinned and flexed his hand. Where the break had been, a faint bruising was all that remained. Kylo nodded again, then pulled the food closer and began eating to hide his relief and other unnamed emotions burning inside him now.

Three bites later, he thought to reach out to Rey, wanting to know if she was alright, then hesitated, his spoonful of food halfway to his mouth.

“Is there something wrong with the food?” Jobe asked, leaning close, concern in his eyes.

“No, it’s fine,” Kylo mumbled. He couldn’t say why he hesitated, caught between wanting to know and fearing what he would find. Then the thought came to him of what had caused all this to begin with and a fresh wave of guilt and anger at himself chase away his appetite. He pushed the table aside with a flick of his finger and rose to stomp out the door, needing to move, to pace, to do something.

Pacing the confines of the hold only helped for a few short minutes. Still, the need for action cried out in him. A sudden thrum along the Force link alerted him to Rey once again and he felt her light. Energized even more now, he turned and shouted at Jobe.

“Get the engines up and running!”

Jobe snapped him half a salute and dashed to the cockpit, a grin of anticipation brightening his face. Kylo was right behind him, leaning on his chair and helping to flip switches, too wound up to sit.

“Where are we off to, sir?” Jobe asked, priming the hyperdrive.

Kylo shook his head, feeling the urge building to go, but not sure where just yet. He opened himself to the Force, the question foremost in his mind. With the swiftness of light from a dawning sun, the knowledge came to him.

“Jakku. We’re going to Jakku.”


	14. Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn confronts General Leia Organa about becoming a Jedi. Leia confronts herself about the same thing.

Anger was a familiar emotion to Leia, one that had been with her for most of her adult life, if not all of it. Beginning with her first Senate appointment, she’d become acquainted with it intimately. She could recognize what would trigger her anger by the time she’d come to lead the Rebel Alliance against Emperor Palpatine and his lackeys in the last days of the Empire’s rule over the known Galaxy and had used that to her advantage many times, allowing the drive of the anger burning inside to push her into situations and get her out of them that most people wouldn’t even think of getting near.

What wasn’t so familiar to her was fear. She’d felt fear often enough over the years, but it had always been driven out by the anger, by her unwillingness to give into it. That anger had always been white hot, driven by indignation, by her feelings of justice and of righting wrongs. Her fear now was of the new anger that she’d been feeling lately.

This new anger was different. It was dark and filled with despair. Her losses seemed to be making it swell even more than it had, ever since...since the loss of her son, since his desertion to the First Order. Now, with Han’s death, it was rising within her, threatening to overwhelm her, to take control of her emotions and her life. It whispered to her, this anger, promising her things that she had thought herself beyond. It invaded her dreams, turning them to nightmares that made her run so far and so fast in the other direction that she found it hard to sleep much anymore. 

That, more than anything, gave rise to the fear, allowing it to grow inside her. She feared this anger, feared what would happen if she gave into it. She could feel herself losing control over it. It scared her, not because she was afraid of losing control, but because she wanted to lose control. She wanted to give in and use the power that beckoned to her from within her anger.

Luke had told her about the Dark Side and what Yoda had taught him and she was certain that was where this anger would lead her. She knew he was right about this, about what this kind of anger would do to her. It would make her like her father had been. That’s what scared her. 

 

She felt a different kind of fear at the knock on her door, one that had nothing to do with the Dark Side and everything to do with the type of politics she’d been embroiled in all her adult life. Especially after what she had just discovered. Cautiously, she reached under the low table in front of her and grabbed the small blaster hidden there, blessing Han for his suspicious mannerisms that he’d passed on to her over the years. Avoiding the frame of the door, she slid up to the side and keyed the intercom. 

“Yes, this is General Organa. Who’s there?” She wanted to add ‘at this time of night’, but thought that might sound too suspicious. Or too telling if someone was there that wished her harm. The answer surprised her.

“Hello? General Organa? It’s me, Finn. I need to talk to you about something very important.” 

Finn’s voice came through the intercom sounding shaky and uncertain. Taking a deep breath, Leia discovered she’d been holding hers while waiting. The rush of air into her lungs burned a bit and made her light-headed. She grabbed the door jamb and waited until the dizziness passed, then keyed the lock on the door and activated it to open. Finn was indeed standing there, his hands on his hips, looking at her from under his lowered brows, like a kid caught in a place where he wasn’t sure he was supposed to be. Leia had seen that look plenty of times on her own sons’ faces.

Holding the blaster behind her back, she stepped to the side of the doorway and waved him in, keeping an eye on the hallway as she did. He walked in and then over to the end of the couch, where he stood with his back to her, waiting. For what, she wasn’t sure. Taking one last look down the hall in each direction, Leia closed and locked the door and set it to not allow any disturbances. Keeping her movements nonchalant, she stepped over to the couch and sat, sliding the blaster down along her leg to hide between the cushions. 

“Now, tell me what is so very important that it can’t wait until morning,” she said to Finn, letting a bit of her fear turn to ire and show in her voice.

Finn’s head came up and he turned to face her, his hands still on his hips. “It’s nearly 6th hour, Ma’am. I am sorry if I woke you up. I figured you’d be awake already.”

Leia suppressed her surprise at the time and waved a hand to the chair facing her across the low table. “No, you didn’t wake me,” she said truthfully, “Please, have a seat.”

“Thank you, but no,”Finn replied. His lips thinned as he scowled. Leia thought he was scowling at her but then realized he wasn’t focused on her. Instead, he seemed to be holding an inner dialogue that he wasn’t sure he should speak aloud.

“Then spit it out.” Leia made it a command, knowing that sometimes it made things easier to say.

Finn’s scowl became a look that implored her understanding even as he spoke. “I’ve come here to ask you if you can teach me how to become a Jedi.”

Shock rendered Leia speechless, even as her anger leapt like it was fire feeding on newly found fuel. After a few seconds of this, she found her voice. “Jedi?” she scoffed, “I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong person. My brother is the one you want for that, not me!” She emphasized this with a chop of her hand. Her agitation rose and she found herself on her feet, pacing around the back of the couch then past the table to stand in front of him. “I don’t know where you came up with the idea that I could teach you anything about the Force, but you need to get that idea out of your head once and for all.”

Finn’s face as he looked down at her was gentle and understanding, with an underlying firmness that reminded Leia of bedrock underneath the beautiful green meadows of her lost homeworld. “I’m sorry, General, but I’m going to have to disagree with you. You can touch the Force, use it even. But you choose, for some reason, to deny it, to yourself and to others. If we are to help your brother and Rey, you need to get past whatever is holding you back and show me how to tap into that power. I need, no,” he paused and his gaze softened as he held out his hand, “we need to become Jedi, or all is lost.”

Leia felt her jaw drop as he spoke. Not at his rebuttal. She was used to people disagreeing with her. That was something that had been happening all her life, ever since she’d started standing against the status quo and speaking out for those who couldn’t speak for themselves. No, what made her jaw drop was the response that his words stirred within her. 

What she felt, first and foremost, deep inside her, was hope. Hope that she hadn’t felt stir inside her in years. It started like a small spark, warm but still weak, wavering in the wind of her fear, until she focused on it, wrapping her thoughts around it to shelter and protect it. The hope grew, despite her fear and misgivings, into a real flame. The flame fed on her desire for justice and yearning for peace until her heart was racing and her breath was hard to catch.

She looked up at Finn, ready to admit that he might be right, when suddenly her anger leapt up to the flame of hope and swallowed it whole. Power flooded through her, indignation fueled by years of fighting against the status quo, of trying to convince stubborn individuals that there was a better way, a brighter way. This power burned through her fear and showed her that she needn’t fear any longer. They would know how right she was and she would show them the way to peace with her knight by her side, bringing justice to the whole galaxy. The flame of her hope had grown cold now, but the power flowing into her whispered that she didn’t need hope when she held the right of justice in her hand and could wield it as easily as…

Leia faltered as she realized her fists were clenched by her side and she was glaring at Finn as he cowered away from her. Her thought finished itself with the image of a red lightsaber, held in a black-gloved fist. Like Vader, her mind whispered, no screamed, as she wrenched herself back under control, clamping down on the anger like it was a rampant beast. Her jaw hurt from the muscle clenching but she still managed to murmur quietly to him, hoping he could hear her. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

Finn reached out as soon as her fists relaxed and touched her on the arm. “General, yes,” his eyes, dark as they were, held no fear, only respect, awe and something she thought at first might be pity, but realized was empathy, “you can. You have the ability to do something great.” He continued as she found herself allowing him to lead her back to the couch and be seated. “Please, don’t let your fear and anger turn you from the path before us.” 

Leia looked into his eyes and found an unwavering sense of loyalty, an unexpected rock in her ocean of sorrow. Fear lurked there too, as did a multitude of other emotions, but his determination, in the face of her hesitant and angry reaction, had her nodding slowly before she even realized she had accepted what he offered. She held out her hand to him.

Finn looked at her, then down at her hand. Leia smiled. “Well, if we’re going to chase this crazy dream together, we need to shake on it. That’s how my people close a deal or agree to a pact.”

Grinning, he took her hand and she pumped it up and down a couple of times. “And if you and I are going to become Jedi, Finn, then you are now one of my people,” Leia stated, nodding for emphasis.

The tears in his eyes were unexpected but welcome, as was the hug he wrapped her in. She realized as he hugged her and cried on her shoulder that she was crying too. She hadn’t been hugged since Chewbacca had left. The hollow under her heart didn’t feel so empty now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for how long this took to write. It was a lot harder to find Leia's voice and then to define how she might feel about this and get it out onto paper. Plus life is a master at getting in the way. Hope the wait was worth it!


	15. Ripple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke and Rey discuss his father. The Force prompts Rey as to her next move in her journey.

“Darth Vader!” Eyes wide, Rey’s mouth opened in shock as she practically shouted the name back at him. 

Luke flinched and looked away, the conflict of emotions visible on his face. He was proud of the fact that he had helped bring his father back from the Dark Side’s grip and into the Light once again, but the reputation that the man had built up as his alter-ego was legendary. The fact that Anakin had nearly erased his own name from history made it all the harder for anyone to believe that he’d been anything but a monster while he lived. 

Years of searching, of combing through lost and forgotten records on dozens of worlds, had helped Luke to piece together a different story. One that spoke of conflicts within and without Anakin’s self, until at the last, like Luke had told Rey, what had originally seemed abhorrent became reasonable and what was unthinkable became logical, and the Dark Side - through Vader’s new master, had consumed him. 

After a brief struggle to control himself, Luke looked back at Rey, only to find her deep in thought, her brow furrowed. Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself more and waited until she came out of her thoughts to meet his gaze. Her brow was still furrowed in thought as she spoke.

“How did you find out?” 

Luke gulped a bit at that, reluctant to bring up that memory, but steeled himself and told her the truth. “He told me he was after we had fought and then it was confirmed by Yoda and Obi-Wan that he was indeed my father.” 

“That’s when you lost your hand, right?” Her eyes dropped to the appendage in question. 

Luke flexed his artificial hand, aware of it now more than he usually was under her scrutiny. “Yes.”

When he didn’t say any more on the subject, Rey reached out and touched the metal hand, wrapping her fingers over it and giving it a squeeze. “I know it must be hard, but I would like to know more about...about your father.”

Luke patted her hand and met her gaze. “How much do you know already?” he asked.

Rey thought for a moment on what she had learned about the deceased Emperor’s main enforcer. Known as the Emperor’s Fist, Darth Vader had figured prominently in many of the propaganda films she had found on the wrecks in the deserts of Jakku as well as the news vids, but it all amounted to not much about the person himself. “Only what the Empire told everyone, which wasn’t much.” She shook her head. “I read reports on what he was supposed to have done,” she paused and then shook her head again, as though in disbelief, “the destruction he caused and did himself. It’s hard to believe it was all done by one man, but I don’t know why anyone would lie about that.”

Luke knew what she was talking about. Vader had destroyed worlds, races of beings had been decimated at his hand or by his order, and lives had been destroyed because of him. Yet, in the end, he had reached out and saved Luke’s life, embracing the Light side of the Force once again as he had before he’d been seduced by the Emperor. 

Not many people knew that the Emperor had also been a Force user, a Sith Lord. Darth Sidious had been his title, from what few records on him Luke had been able to find. Obi-Wan’s journals had been his greatest source of information on what the Jedi had been like before Anakin had turned, had been turned. Senator Palpatine had not been seen as a threat until it was too late for anyone to do anything but fight against the Darkness as it swallowed up the Republic and turned into the Empire. 

Obi-Wan Kenobi, Old Ben, had been Anakin’s Master up until the end and had been the one that ultimately had destroyed Anakin’s body until the only recourse his new master had left was to create him a new one. Luke felt that this had somehow made it easier for Anakin to give into the Dark Side. Always in pain, always dependent on his Master just to exist. Worst of all, to think that he had been the cause of death to his beloved wife, Luke and Leia’s mother. 

“No, those reports aren’t made up. In fact, they don’t actually reveal everything,” Luke murmured, his gaze turned into himself, reflecting on everything he’d discovered about his father that hadn’t been general knowledge. Things that he hadn’t even told his own sister, knowing how angry she became whenever the subject of their father came up. “To tell you everything I know would take a very long time, but I can show you…” Luke found the words had become stuck in his throat. He patted Rey’s hand where it lay on his own. “When we get back to Beru Island, I will show you what I discovered and let you read for yourself. Okay?”

Rey nodded and shivered. That was when Luke looked up and realized a storm had blown in while they were preoccupied with climbing the cliff and now it looked like it was ready to burst overhead. He stood and gathered his gear, then turned and headed to the left of the cliff, along the edge of the vale at the top of the mountain. Rey followed along behind him, her demeanor quiet as she contemplated what she’d learned. 

To Rey’s surprise, Luke’s path led them to the top of stairs carved into the side of the mountain and heading down to the right of the cliff they had ascended, hidden by an oversized outcropping of dark grey rock. 

“Wait,” she nearly shouted it out to Luke’s back, “this has been here all along?” When he turned and smiled at her, looking way more pleased than she thought he had any right too, she scowled at him. “Why did we spend all that time climbing that stupid cliff if these stairs were here all the time?”

Luke tried to look abashed and failed miserably. “Our goal wasn’t to reach the top of the mountain, Rey.” He gave her a few moments to think about this, then patted her on the shoulder. The air was tense with the coming storm, as well as filled with an extra sense of tension, like the moment of holding one’s breath before a surprise. When Rey looked up at him, he grinned and pointed back to the cliff’s edge she’d rolled over earlier. “You aren’t going to be using the stairs anyway.” 

Her gasp of disbelief came out before she could stop it and he favored her with one of his sterner looks. “You need to return the way you came.”

A shock of feeling rolled out from the words he spoke and echoed out into their senses along and through the Force. The words he’d spoken resonated on multiple levels, bringing their meaning to bear not only for how she was to descend the cliff she’d just climbed, but reaching out to where she’d come from. 

Rey knew immediately what it meant. She needed to return to Jakku.


	16. Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren waits for Rey on Jakku and explores her old walker home base. Old wounds are reopened, but that is often the first step in healing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May the Fourth be with you!

Jakku.  
The sand was everywhere and in everything. As soon as Kylo Ren descended from his shuttle under the midday sun, he felt like it was trying to get inside his clothing and next to his skin. He didn’t recall there being this much sand the last time he’d been on this filthy planet, but that had been at a different location and his focus had been elsewhere. 

The village where he’d tracked the map piece to and ended up capturing that pilot, Dameron, but not that damnable droid, had been up higher in the hill country and rockier, or at least packed down more. A twinge of emotion made him scowl as the memory of striking down Lor San Tekka bubbled up unexpectedly from his subconscious. Striking the old traveler down hadn’t been an ideal solution, but given the old man’s propensity to talking about things best left unsaid, it had been his only choice, under the circumstances. 

He scowled as he strode over the sand to the remnants of the AT-AT laying half-buried on the ridge. Those thoughts were distracting him from why he was here and what he was hoping to find. The downed walker was right where that sleemball junkyard dealer, Plutt, had said it would be. He’d been reluctant to give up that information, at first. Kylo and Jobe had to talk to him a bit, let him know that the First Order wasn’t above laying waste to his precious junkyard and leaving him out to be desiccated and preserved in the shifting sand dunes of the surrounding area if he didn’t give them what they were asking for, before Plutt had caved and spilled his knowledge like water on the dry soil. The fact that Plutt had actually locked the walker down and forbidden any raiding by other inhabitants of the area spoke volumes on his intentions toward Rey and her property. 

Kylo’s fist tightened as he reached out toward the locking device holding the undercarriage door secure against intruders. The metal creaked under the pressure he was exerting with the Force and he allowed the rage he felt at the thought of Plutt having any kind of designs on Rey to fuel his demand on the metal to release its hold. The metal surrounding the locking device ripped free, the armored hull tearing as though it were made of beaten wood fibers stretched between shaved stick frames. 

Jobe’s voice came to him over the intercom from the shuttle’s cockpit. “I could have unlocked that for you, sir. Don’t know how you’re gonna secure that door when we leave now.” 

Kylo felt an odd warmth in his guts at the sarcasm in his aide’s voice. He never would have tolerated that familiarity of tone from anyone else, not before Jobe. Instead, he grinned behind his mask and chuckled. “Oh I don’t think she’ll be wanting to stay here any longer than necessary. After today, if some sand rat wants to rummage around, it won’t matter any more.” He ignore the huff of Jobe’s disbelief and shoved the door open with a slight flick of his wrist. 

He entered the shadowy hull of the walker, leaving his aide with a warning. “Just keep an eye out for company and let me know when she gets here.” Jobe’s reply was barely heard as he turned his attention to what he was seeing, the thought of being here where she had lived twisting his gut with excitement and trepidation. 

Inside, the place was spotless and tidy, minus the sand of course. It had even managed to sneak its way into the walker’s belly, sifting in through the cracks in the armor plating and piling up in little drifts around the edges of the room. A dried flower of some kind stood in a pot of hardened soil on a makeshift counter to his left, next to a burner pad holding an empty flat pan. Ration packets were neatly stacked under the counter’s surface in a crate and a small bottle of water stood next to the crate under the counter as well. A re-purposed drain pan held utensils for cooking and eating, though with only rations to eat, they didn’t show much usage. 

He stepped inside and removed his mask, eager to see with unfiltered sight where she had lived before finding her way off this sand heap and into his life. Scanning the edges of the area where she had made herself a living space, he could see a hammock tied up against the right wall - which used to lead to the cockpit of the transport - and shelves lining the walls under the hammock and to the left of it, partially blocking the now-sideways door area. These were filled with parts and pieces of machinery and stacks of crates filled with odds and ends of what appeared to be personal items of various types. He stepped closer to these, wanting to know what she had collected and sorted through so thoroughly.

That’s when the wall to the left of the hammock caught his attention. Its darkened surface had been the top of the troop transport so didn’t have much wear on it or hardware sticking out of it. The smooth metal surface was covered nearly top to bottom with small scratch marks. Easing himself around the end of the counter sticking out into the living area, he walked closer to the wall, curiosity itching him between his shoulder blades. With the counter out of the way, he could see that the left half of the wall was indeed covered from top to bottom with these marks, while the right half was only marked from the top down about two-thirds of the way to the bottom. 

His gloved hand reached out slowly, almost of its own volition and ran a finger over several of the marks. Rough edges caught the material of his glove, snagging and catching it as his finger ran over each one. A sudden urge to feel them welled up inside and he removed his glove to run his fingers over the marks again. Each one was carved into the coated metal of the former ceiling of the walker and left the tips of his fingers feeling a bit raw afterwards. 

A quick calculation gave him a rough estimate of how many scratch marks there were on the left hand side. When added to the amount on the right, it came up to an amount that seemed staggering at first and baffling to him. Why would anyone want to make that many marks on a wall? It seemed like an odd use of space and time. Then it struck him. That’s exactly what it was, a marking of time. Specifically, time passed by. A hollow feeling struck him, leaving a pit yawning open in his belly. That much time passing here was a horror that he found hard to comprehend, which when considered against the horrors he had seen in his life, made it even worse. 

The time marked on the wall came to roughly eleven standard years, which by Jakku’s time was just over ten years here in this brokedown walker, scavenging for parts for that sleemball Plutt and existing in this wasteland, far from any true civilization. Yet she, Rey, had shown skills and talents that far surpassed what one could normally expect from just any uneducated, untrained sand rat. The question of how she had come by her knowledge was a puzzle that pulled at his curiosity, leading him back to the wall behind the hammock. 

Setting his mask down on the top shelf, he crouched to rummage through the various bins and containers, picking up the items stashed there for inspection. Old datapads and books of all kinds filled the bins, along with items he recognized as personal effects from various cultures, most of them human. They seemed to be categorized, though he wasn’t sure how, or why she had collected them. Standing again, a black disk about the size of his fist lying on the top shelf to his left caught his attention. He picked it up and recognized it as an older style of holoprojector, made to hold just a few images, like something one would give as a gift of remembrance. He thumbed the small indent on the bottom to turn it on, curious to see what was stored on it that deserved a special place on these shelves. His surprise was only mild when it refused to activate, its charge no longer strong enough to make it work. 

He tucked it into his belt, wanting to charge it later, and stood, looking now at the sideways door leading into the cockpit of the downed walker. As his eyes followed the seam around the edge, he contemplated how to get it open. It was obvious that it did open, as there were scuff marks on the lower edge and the top of the shelves there were bare. The question wasn’t if it would open, but how. Manually or was it powered, meaning it would slide. Down in this case, as these doors were made to open to the left when they were upright. He located what he was looking for at the top edge of the door. The control panel, and it was lit up, the green and red lights dirty but glowing in the dimness of the room. 

A push of the button, easy for him to reach, and the door slid down, revealing the sideways cockpit of the walker, although greatly modified from how it was originally. The chairs for the drivers had been removed, replaced by a bulky full-body support seat resting on an assembly that looked like it would shift and turn when sat in. Which it would, as it was the chair from a simulation chamber, situated to take advantage of the space available in the walker’s head area and still have room to move like it was supposed to.

Kylo reached up over his head and hit the button to close the door. It groaned slightly as it raised up to secure the port behind him. He paid it no attention, too busy angling his way into the chair and just glad it shut out any intrusion from the outside. Very much on edge with the excitement he felt coursing through him right now, he was not in the mood to suffer any interruption lightly. The absence of her, of Rey, was a welcome relief at this point, as he wasn’t even sure what he would say to her right now. Later, he would think about it, plan it out. Right now, this piece of machinery held his full attention. 

His hands caressed the control sticks in front of him, going to the power switches and activating the displays out of sheer muscle memory. He’d spent hours in one similar to this when he was young, wanting to be the best pilot in the fleet. The memory of this dream stabbed at him, causing a soft groan to rise in his throat. The picture arose against his will, his small hands reaching out to hold the controls, his father’s hands reaching out to cover them, correcting his grip and showing him how to move them.

The groan came again, rising like bile up into his mouth. Closing his eyes, clenching his fists, he fought it off, wanting to keep the darkness back, keep his rage away from here. Here where she had trained herself, where she’d slaked her thirst for knowledge, for skills, for the ability to fly free of her dismal surroundings, feeding her will until it became the indomitable power it was now. It was no longer a wonder to him that she was a powerful Force user, only that it had taken her so long to manifest it openly.

He managed to suppress his rage, suppress those memories, thinking of her. The more he held her in his mind’s eye, the more he was able to clear his thoughts, clear himself of emotion. Peace. Yes, that was what he was able to achieve thinking of her. He felt peace with her in his mind. Feeling this, he reached out to her, wanting to know if she could feel it too. 

Turmoil came to him, her emotions and thoughts in a whirlwind, swirling about with ferocity and purpose. A sense of openness, of wide open spaces, focusing down into one place. He opened himself to her, wanting to see what she was so focused on. A vision appeared in his mind, much as it had when he’d opened himself to her before, though without the pain and anger. It was a familiar sight, so familiar that at first he mistook it for one of his own memories until an old man walked into view. The Millennium Falcon stood on a large landing space, rock this time, with Chewie doing last minute checks on something under the ship. The old man was wearing robes and it took him a long moment to place his identity. 

Not until she had looked from Chewbacca to the old man and was struck by a wave of emotion did Kylo realize that the old man was his uncle, Luke Skywalker. Funny how surprising it was to think of his uncle as old. Same as it had been to see age in his father’s face. That thought had him teetering on the brink of that hole in his chest, the one he kept pushing deeper and deeper, covering it over with thoughts of Rey and how she was coming here and he was going to meet her again, this time in less volatile circumstances. 

She reached back to him then, a query in her mind of where he was. He quickly formed pictures of the training center he’d been at until recently, not wanting her to realize he was waiting for her in her old place. Her suspected she’d be upset with him sitting in her simulator chair, someplace she’d never shared with anyone. He loathed the idea of anyone touching his things, except now Jobe, and the fact she’d been here on this desolate planet by herself gave him the impression she might feel the same. Satisfied with his projection, she withdrew from the connection, not completely, but enough to leave him floating on his own, watching her gather a load of something and walk onto the ship. 

A wave of something - nostalgia, angst, the pain of loss, an endless yawning hole of loneliness and desperate yearning - washed over him without warning, causing him to withdraw from the connection until it was a mere tenuous thread between them. Holding his head in his hands, he rocked back and forth in the simulator chair, fighting the desire to strike out, against what he wasn't certain. Against, perhaps, how it made him feel to think of the Millennium Falcon continuing to fly between planets, throughout the galaxy, without his father, with Chewie and her and Luke, but no longer truly part of him, part of his family. He wasn't sure how to voice that, how to describe those images surfacing in his mind, even to himself. 

His gaze landed on the screens of the simulator chair and he distracted himself with looking for the power switch. It worked, as did the switch. The power brought the simulator to life with a low hum, the screens lighting up, all but two anyway. He tried tapping on them with his ungloved hand, but no luck. Not that they were necessary, just part of the readouts. He started reading the screens from the top, looking at the types of ships she had programmed into her training.

It was impressive how many different ships she'd worked together in the simulator. Imperial and Republic and others he had no idea where they came from, all available on this cobbled together machine. Well used too, by the scores showing on those he brought up. Scores that made him jealous. He'd been a great pilot, before - he shook his head, fighting his memories again.

This time he lost. Surrounded by the vivid reminders of what used to be, of what he no longer had, he was lost under the torrent of images bursting in his mind now. Flying with his father, co-piloting the Falcon, beating all other pilots who faced him in the races he and his father used to sneak away to. Before he'd faced his brother. Before he'd struck him down, destroyed him, excised his presence from the Force. And tore his family apart.

Fists clenched, body clenched, Kylo fought the rage, the despair bursting up from his gut. Eyes screwed shut against the burn of tears, jaw clamped against crying out, he faced that blackness, that Darkness, much as he had when Rey had almost succumbed, knowing, fearing the outcome would be the same.

It was worse. The Darkness rolled over him like a storm, lightning bolts of guilt and anguish stabbing into him, shocking him with their intensity. He fought them, striking out with his fists, the sharp stings of pain jolting up his arms. Defensive now, he opened himself to the Force, aware of the danger, the possibility of losing himself in the Darkness. 

The Force came, stronger than it had ever before, filling him with power, his anger and pain swallowed by his desire to survive. As his head cleared and he faced the Darkness, it became clear that it was more than just survival that he wanted. It was life. He wanted to live, to accomplish what he'd set out to do, all those years ago. He'd known early on that there was only one way to achieve his goal, and with the removal of his brother and the death of his father, only one thing remained.

That would have been enough, before he met her. Before he knew she existed, he would have been satisfied to fulfill his goal, even if it meant death. Now though, he found himself looking beyond that end goal, looking to her light and the thought that once he achieved what he considered to be his destiny, then she would be there afterwards. 

So he fought. Fought against the Darkness that threatened to engulf him. Against the pain attempting to tear his insides apart. Through the despair and anguish of what he'd done to his father, what that must have done to his mother. That thought nearly broke him, forcing him to scrabble back to a precarious footing only by dredging up the memory of Rey in his arms as he carried her onto his ship, but regain it he did. He fought until he found a certain point where he was able to breathe once again, think once again without his emotions wrecking him from within. Then, finally, he slept, secured in the simulator chair, knowing he was safe in this wrecked walker and that Jobe watched over him from the shuttle.

Outside in the shuttle, Jobe queried his master through the intercom in the helmet, unaware it was laying on the counter until there was no response.  
“Master Ren? Can you hear me? Is everything alright?”

He'd left the shuttle door open to allow Kylo entrance when he'd finished with the wrecked AT-AT, sure his master would want the security of space before he slept. But the night advanced and though there came muffled bangs and shouts from the ruin, his master didn't appear. Long after he had waited past the time he'd expected, at last he closed the door and laid down on the floor of the cockpit to try and sleep, despite the worry gnawing his insides.


End file.
